During the last meeting of the fall semester for the 70th Student Senate, two new chairs were elected within student government. Jonah Chen resigned as the vice president of Municipal Affairs as he prepares to start a job in December and Anne Maria Wolff stepped down as the vice president of Academic Affairs due to her upcoming graduation.
Chemical engineering sophomore Tate Banks was elected as the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and supply chain management sophomore Walid Belkhatir was elected unanimously as the Vice President of Municipal Affairs.
“I want to increase the flow of student senate,” Banks said. “Senate has some good things right now, but I want to increase the amount of good things. I just want to make sure we keep going strong throughout next semester.”
Belkhatir said he hopes to fulfill the VP of Municipal Affairs role by finding more ways to get students involved in local government such as voting in elections.
“In order to get students involved and vote, you have to think of creative ways to get them engaged,” Belkhatir said. “Some people feel it may not be important, but it is our job to get them motivated and as involved as we can.”
Belkhatir said his goal is for more students to be registered to vote in local elections next semester than the number registered for fall 2017 along with the municipal affairs committee maintaining the relationship between students and the community.
“We want to continue to register students to vote, so we will be focusing on this goal next semester and to get more people registered than we did this semester,” Belkhatir said. “We want to continue to communicate the students’ concerns with the municipalities and counties, and the best way is to be here, hear student opinions and act on it.”
The Aggie Muster committee also made a special presentation to Student Senate pertaining to the 2019 Aggie Muster. The 2019 Muster ceremony will fall on Easter Sunday, something that has only happened twice in school history.
The committee is working with the Association of Former Students, Student Senate and administration to determine the best plan of action — whether that be holding Muster on Easter Sunday or moving it to the next Monday, April 22. A decision will be made next semester in time to plan for the 2019 Aggie Muster.
“[Student Senate] is a literal representation of the student body,” said Hannah Bezet, Aggie Muster Awareness Executive. “We want the student body’s voice to be represented in some way as we make this decision.”
Student Senate is adjourned until the return from winter break and one of the first bills up for discussion will pertain to the distribution of senate seats to each college.