COVID-19, Black Lives Matter movement define term
The current President of URI’s student senate, Austyn Ramsay. Photo by James Singer.
As the University of Rhode Island elects a new Student Senate president for the upcoming academic, current President Austyn Ramsay’s tenure is coming to a close.
Ramsay’s presidency was not at all what she expected when she ran last year alongside her sister, Vice President Madyson Ramsay. The platform the Ramsay ticket ran on was heavily impacted by the pandemic. Originally, one of their goals included creating a campus-wide reusable cup program, but the Ramsays ultimately had put that to the side.
Over the summer, the sisters rewrote their goals and platforms together to reflect the changes that COVID-19 brought to the upcoming academic year. Instead of the weekly meetings in the Senate chambers in the Memorial Union, Ramsay faced the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing increased attention to the Black Lives Matter movement in the community and the search for a new university president.
According to Ramsay, one of her proudest moments and greatest accomplishments during her tenure was signing a contingency grant worth $50,000 to the Office of Student Involvement for programming purposes, which helped them fund campus events.
Moving the Senate processes online was another major accomplishment for Ramsay as president. Previously, senators and executive team members met in the Senate Chambers for weekly meetings but they had to quickly adapt to a WebEx format to accommodate the General Assembly.
“In past years, Student Senate has had a really difficult time getting things done,” Ramsay said. “But this year, I think my biggest or my proudest moment was our ability to kind of like work through all those nuanced issues, and just kind of jump together as a team and really stick up and do what’s right for our student body and get things done. I’m really proud of us for doing it.”
Ramsay’s term will end at Senate’s April 7 Annual Meeting, where the new president will officially be appointed and take over. Read more about President-elect Bolu Taiwo on page one of the Cigar.
At Senate’s March 31 meeting, Senator Christopher Bove put a resolution on the floor to thank Ramsay for her “outstanding leadership” during her time as president.
“Personally, I think everyone in our leadership is great, but I could not think of a better person to lead us through a crisis than Austyn Ramsay,” Bove said. “When something is important to her, she doesn’t give up. I think that her leadership qualities made her the best person to show compassion and be the one to advocate for us during these difficult months.”
Ramsay has had a strong voice in advocating for an in-person 2021 commencement. According to Off-Campus Senator and Senate Chief of Staff Rossvierlin Cajigas, Ramsay worked closely with her to bring the student voice to the graduation plans for the class of 2021. In collaborating, Cajigas has appreciated Ramsay’s disposition when issues arise.
“When we’re in the Student Senate meetings, you can just see how she takes this seriously, and how she takes her job seriously, especially during the pandemic,” Cajigas said. “That’s what I really admire about her, that she never gave up and never gave up that joy or willingness to help and make a difference for the URI population.”
Now, Ramsay is about to graduate from URI with a degree in political science and enter into her first year of law school. She stayed at URI for a fifth year in order to finish her final remaining credits and take advantage of the opportunity to run for Senate president. Ramsay said that her leadership in Senate has prepared her well for her future in law, but she will miss it nonetheless.
“It feels extremely way too short,” Ramsay said. “I’m happy to be graduating and moving on, but at the same time, I’m super sad. I’ve been on Senate ever since I got to URI, so it’s definitely a bittersweet moment.”