Ohio University’s Student Senate will have a full executive board for the first time this semester when Wednesday night’s meeting is called to order.
The senate executive board now comprises President Anna Morton, Vice President Mary Kate Gallagher and Treasurer Adam Brown.
The three are all senate veterans — Morton is in her fourth year on senate, Gallagher in her fifth and Brown in his third — but all three find themselves in different positions from when the 2013-14 academic year started.
For Gallagher and Brown, their new positions brought with them full in-state tuition scholarships from the time of their swearing in on, said Ryan Lombardi, vice president for Student Affairs and senate’s advisor. Morton had the same scholarship as vice president as she now has as president.
The Wednesday meeting is expected to be a return to normal senate meetings after the first three meetings of the semester had been filled with swearing in Morton as the new president, trying to fill the vacant vice president seat and dealing with numerous resignations.
As of now, senate has 12 open seats, six of which are voting members.
During the meeting, there will be presentations from Alpha Phi Omega on its faculty pageant, Amanda Tragert from the Association of Cultural Exchange and Brown on senate’s budget.
The new executive board is ready to tackle senate’s problems and move it forward in the coming weeks.
“I see senate like (moving) onward and upward,” Morton said.
All three of the board members said they have goals they would like to accomplish in their new roles, with Morton citing both broad and specific goals.
“I think we need to bring trust back to students. That’s something that I would really like to do and how we do that is getting back to why we are here,” she said. “I think that’s a big goal, but I have faith that we can do it.”
Morton said she wants to make changes to senate’s policies to help the body function better internally, such as changing the conduct and disciplinary committee from an internal group of five senators to a semi-external group comprising both senate and non-senate members for next year.
Morton also wants to bring continuity to the Spring Convo Concert that is typically held every year by working with outside organizations, such as the University Program Council, to make sure it happens in the coming years.
“It may not be easy, it may not work, but I do want to try to do that,” she said.
Former Student Senate President Nick Southall had been working to organize a Spring Convo Concert for 2014, but plans dissolved shortly after his resignation.
Gallagher said she still has the same goals she’s always had for senate.
“When I was (residential) life commissioner, all I really wanted to do was give (senators) a really good foundation and be able to have them be fantastic leaders on senate, and that hasn’t changed except it’s broadened to everybody,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher, who was the rules and procedures chair until she stepped down in September, also wants senators to have a clear understanding of senate’s rules and procedures, she said.
For Brown, he said he wants to make changes to the Student Activities Commission rule system, something his predecessor, Austin LaForest, had started. He also hopes to teach student organizations and senators how to efficiently apply for budget money.
The three executives said they believe they will be able to work well together in the coming weeks.
“We already do have a strong foundation of not just working with each other on senate, but we’ve all worked together in some capacity,” Brown said, adding he and Gallagher have chaired the Culinary Services Development Committee and all three worked together on campus during the summer.
The executives aren’t the only ones who think they could enact change in senate.
“I certainly have high hopes that they will work well together,” Lombardi said. “I’m very hopeful that they will be able to kind of get things going and help better drive the group and help get things back on track for the rest of the semester.”
@MariaDeVito13
md781510@ohiou.edu
