This week in the Student Senate: The clubs Uhuru SaSa and the Student Entertainment Committee aired their grievances about the budget and Director of Dining Services Pierre St-Germain spoke about the new dining plan.
The senators heard from two representatives from Uhuru SaSa about the $12,000 reduction in their proposed budget. The organization said that the cuts would leave it impossible for them to rent out the Ryan Center for their upcoming fashion show.
The Student Entertainment Committee then got up to speak about their grievances with their budget cuts, which totaled $80,000. Two representatives from the SEC spoke about the difficulties of getting celebrities to URI with cancellations and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The senators motioned to immediately approve and amend the budget, and the SEC received the $80,000 back with an additional $5,000 tacked on for the students.
The senators then moved to discussions about the new dining plan with the Director of Dining Services, Pierre St-Germain.
St-Germain said that the new dining plan would benefit students. Bove questioned if St-Germain and the Dining Center as a whole would be willing to restore the RAM Account revisions.
St-Germain said that the University has been trying to move away from the RAM Account for multiple reasons. According to him, the RAM Account in meal plans “isn’t a funding that entirely supports the dining, but dining always supports the funding.”
Bove spoke about how he can use his RAM account to do laundry at the Emporium and, if he wanted to do so, he could put more money in himself in addition to what is already included in his current plan, which the updated plan would not allow.
“What do you see when you look at a dining plan, is a dining plan supposed to support your ability to do laundry? Or is a dining plan supposed to support your ability to eat?” St-Germain asked in response to Bove.
Senator Angelica Tyson also talked about the lack of ethnic food on campus and how there should be more of it in the Ram’s Den. St-Germain responded that he would love to bring more diverse food to the Ram’s Den.
The senators objected to the plan and said that the plan wasn’t brought to the Senate before it was finalized. Senate President Grace Kiernan said that the students’ opinions were not considered for this plan at all. St-Germain said that he brought the finance part of the new plan to the Senate and not the input on what the students on campus will be eating.
“Then why did you come to us with the finance part of it?” Kiernan asked. “We do handle a lot of money on this campus, we have a $1.12 million budget.”
St-Germain rebutted by saying that he has a $28 million budget. They went back and forth until St-Germain ended the debate between them.
“So, I mean, it doesn’t matter, it’s not a pee-pee contest as they might say,” St-Germain said.
Bove then stepped in and ended the debate.
After this, the Senate moved to a bill to amend the Student Senate Budget for the fiscal year 2023. This was quickly reviewed and passed by the Senate.
It was then time for the nominations and voting on new committee chairs for the Student Senate. Christopher Bove was named speaker of the assembly, Anabelle Gibson was named the chair of the Student Organizations Committee, Grace Summerson was named the chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, Angelica Tyson was named the chair of the Cultural Affairs Committee, James Scorri was named the chair of the External Affairs Committee and Cameron Chadronet was named the chair of the Campus Affairs Committee.
For the At-Large Representative, the nominees were Dayanara Monzon with 16 votes, Joseph Rotella with 17 votes and Zach Greene with 13 votes. For the On-Campus Representative, the nominees were Ava Piacentini, Elise Newman, Amelia Emison and Violet Johnson all with 17 votes each.
The swearing-in for the nominees will be done at next week’s Senate meeting on April 20.