Student Senate XXVI held its final meeting of the semester in the University Center on Tuesday.
President Andrew Callahan, ’14, began the meeting by expressing honor to serve on Senate since his first year at Lehigh. “I hope students take Student Senate principles (seriously),” he said.
The council nominated and elected a new club affairs chair, Isabel Buenaga, ’17, for the next academic year.
Senate then recapped the progress of its committees beginning with the allocations committee, which approved additional funding for LUEMS; the Latin Dance Club; Art, Architecture and Design Club; and BIS Club.
The club affairs committee proposed several amendments to its rules and regulations, which caused some conflict with the current bylaws of the senate. The committee’s amendment was placed on hold.
The committee also extended the preliminary recognition of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and accepted the preliminary recognition of the Japan Club.
It also disbanded the recognition of the American Women’s Medical Association, Balance, the Bowling Club, The Brown and Black, China Care, Face Aids, FONI, Hip Hop, Hovercraft, the Italian Club, the Law Club, Lehigh Lends, the Mariachi Club, the Medical Reserve Corps, Model UN, The Lehigh Patriot, the Rock Climbing Club, Schools 4 Schools, Sigma Alpha Pi, Tossing Not Throwing and the Wall Street Club.
The committee is now working on meeting with clubs and guiding them throughout the recognition process, as opposed to meeting with them two times throughout the semester or school year. The Senate voted to have two different methods enforced to help guide such clubs.
“A potential liaison, meeting face-to-face in between two periods, between seven-week periods, would help the overall process,” Rachael Martel, ’16, said.
David Melnyczuk, ’14, Senate’s departing public relations chair, thanked all his club members and said it was a pleasure working with them.
Sarah Glickstein, ’14, urged senators to look out for new bus signs next school year.
Jose Alejandro Sierra, ’16, discussed the difficulty he has experienced with Parking Services. Sierra said he wanted to ensure that the transportation department was following the master plan and asked for input from its coordinators. Overall, he said his meeting with the department was productive.
He shared his proposal to have buses run on Sundays and showed support for the proposal with a 97 percent approval rating from the student body.
The next steps are to figure out the times of day, how often and to which locations the buses would run. Sierra asked senators to “list two things Parking Services does well and two things Parking Services needs to improve on,” a request made on behalf of transportation department consultants.
Senate concluded its meeting by voting to dissolve its current executive board. Immediately afterward, the first meeting of Student Senate XXVII was held, where the executive board was voted into affirmation. Senate XXVII was also affirmed by a vote following a motion from its president Kerry Mallett, ’15.
The next meeting of Senate XXVII will take place August 26, the first Tuesday of the 2014-2015 school year.
Story by Brown and White news writer Cesar Ramirez ’14
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