By Clarice Berardinelli
The past few weeks have been chalked full for Student Senate. Right now, as the current Senate’s term wraps up, we’re completing some tasks we’ve been working on all semester and starting to begin our transition processes for the incoming administration.
The past few weeks we’ve had a lot of guest to have important conversations about the state of our University.Vice President Kristine Goodwin has been a true joy to work with this semester. She has continued to be present at Student Senate meetings and fully advocates for students’ needs.
She is committed to having true student representatives on all University Committees and ensures that moving forward there will be at least two students present on each committee. There are so many tasks she is welcoming student input on and has come to Student Senate as more of a partnership rather than an administrator-to-student relationship.
Dave Rosinski, the new director of Facilities, has been an asset in our meetings since the semester has started. Being fully transparent with our current structures and all of the initiatives he and his team have started are great. They are continuously working to ensure physical safety and comfort are at the forefront of each student’s experience.
Provost Toyda joined us to listen to concerns about the state of academic programs and the structure of first year seminar programs. We were able to share concerns about the different experiences first year students have in their seminars within each college. There is minimal transferability from academic programs outside of the college you start in without falling behind or having to take extra credits.
These concerns are being brought to the Faculty Senate through Provost Toyoda; ideally, she is going to serve as the channel of communication between both parties, resulting in a task force or summit of sorts to work through all of the nuances each program presents.
Vice President of Finance and Administration Basil Stewart entered Senate Chambers to chat through the current financial status of Western New England. Overall, our institution is in a good financial situation. Since assuming the role at the beginning of the current fiscal year, Vice President Stewart has evaluated our financial status and will continue to work to maintain this financial status. All of the numbers and explanations of our financial status can be found in the minutes from our meeting on February 15, 2022
Overall, Student Senate wants to keep advocating for you all. We want you all to know that we are having these conversations, trying new things, and approaching administrators with concerns to serve you all the best way we can. We will continue to welcome guests into Senate Chambers. With your feedback and honesty we are able to grow and develop as a community.
We hope you choose to make your voice heard through the upcoming Student Senate election. Voting for all Senate representation, Class Council executive boards, and a couple of amendments Student Senate representatives have passed to see if all of you want to see these in practice. Elections will be on Thursday, March 10, 2022 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. in the St. Germain Campus Center.
