The Constituency Affairs chair election and an array of legislation were at the forefront of Student Senate’s Wednesday evening agenda.
Senators Ben Johnson and Gentill Abdulla were nominated for the position of Constituency Affairs Chair due to the resignation of Ethan Riojas. After Johnson and Abdulla delivered speeches and the senate deliberated on both candidates’ qualifications for the position, Abdulla was voted in with 32 votes, while Johnson received 25.
As chair, Abdulla said he wants to improve outreach, increase involvement and create more channels of communication between senators and constituents.
“Law Enforcement Officer Appreciation Resolution,” a resolution expressing the Texas A&M student body’s appreciation for the law enforcement officers of the university and the cities of Bryan and College Station, was proposed by Olivia Krog.
Specific language of the bill, including terms like “ambush-style attacks” and “assassinations of officers slain in the line of duty,” led to deliberation within the senate. As interdisciplinary studies senior and college of education Senator Lauren Powers said, it touched on issues within the current social climate that may misrepresent certain groups of minority students on campus.
“This inflammatory language could cause a lot of backlash … I don’t want anybody on campus to feel like they have been misrepresented and like words have been put into their mouths,” said applied mathematical sciences senior and college of sciences Senator Taylor Day.
Despite the deliberation, the bill was passed unanimously.
“The Principles for Responsible Investing and Cooperation for Endowments (PRICE) Act,” is an act passed in cooperation with the University of Texas Student Government to authorize joint negotiations with the University of Texas Investment Management Corporation (UTIMCO) to form an advisory group focused on shareholder engagement. The act was introduced by Vice President of Municipal Affairs and finance senior Spencer Davis along with business honors junior and Mays business school senator Michael Walther.
This advisory group would focus on external managers hired by UTIMCO to invest money into the Permanent University Fund (PUF), a joint endowment between the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) and the University of Texas System (UTS) worth around $18.4 billion. These external managers have previously created controversy by investing in companies accused of documented human rights abuses.
Speaker Joseph Hood wrote the “Texas A&M Kingsville Condolences Resolution,” expressing Student Senate’s shared condolences to the Student Body and Student Government of A&M’s sister school, TAMU Kingsville to commemorate the loss of two students from A&M Kingsville while traveling to an event at A&M College Station.
Student Body President Hannah Wimberly vetoed the recently passed “ICD Credit Reform Bill,” which aimed to seek the adoption of the module systems within the International Cultural and Diversity credit reforms.
“The On-Campus Pricing Bill” requiring on-campus food vendors to list prices of their food products to assist students in budgeting was passed unanimously.
Texas A&M’s student senate swore in around 24 new senators that will help make up the 70th Session of the Student Senate.
