Student Senate survives year

Despite ongoing elections, Senate accomplishes work

Senate has had its ups and downs this year. Elections were the predominant work of those senators who remained in office.

Of the original fifteen senators who began work in the fall, only ten remained in office by the end of the semester. By early Spring semester, only five were left. Ten new senators were elected and within a few weeks four had resigned, three of which had just been elected. All of the senators were forced to run again at the end of the semester, as dictated by the constitution to fill 10 of the 15 seats for next year.

Senators cited numerous reasons for leaving. Along with maintaining sanity and focusing more on school-work, senators also complained that senate wasn't doing much that affected the student body, and was instead focusing on internal issues.

"There was a focus on changing the Senate rather than on changing the College," said former junior senator Aaron Soldounik. He suggested that Senate was so involved in changing its internal process that it was unable to accomplish much.

First-year Jessi Bloom shared the sentiments of several other senators. He felt Senate was not the place where he could accomplish what he wanted to accomplish in regards to addressing the needs of the student body.

Senators who will be taking office in the fall are first-years Miriam Jackson, Benjamin Joffe-Walt, and Kate Davoli, sophomores Jane Glynn, Erika Hansen, Aaron Leavy, and Yakup Sener, and juniors Katie Shorb, Cindy Bello, and senior Manu Vimalassery.

Despite constantly having to deal with elections and new members, Senate proudly accomplished multiple tasks.

Senate played its hand in chartering many new organizations on campus. They also endorsed several policies, approved various pieces of legislation and named three students to the dean of student life search committee.

In mid-November a heated debate over the role of Senate in the chartering process lead to dissention among senators. However, as a direct result, two former senators, Juniors Sarah Fineberg and Sarah Stein-Geenberg, began legislation that will change the chartering process completely.

The new process would put chartering completely in the hands of students, and more specifically, Student Senate. The proposal would do this by eliminating the General Faculty in the approval process and would also set a time limit on the approval process. The proposal will go to GF next year.

Endorsements were also of great importance this year. The endorsement of a proposal that would stop the College from buying items from sweat-shops moved quickly through several committees.

While endorsements were important, Senate had other influential, less formal input. Senate urged President Nancy Dye to take into consideration a sexual offense policy revision written by students. They also gave input on the decision to move the all first-year dorm out of Barrows (see related article pg. 14).

The three student members of the Dean of Student Life Search Committee were also products of Senate selection.

Overall, Senate was able to have a productive year, despite the many setbacks caused by resignations and elections.