By Myles Goldman
The GW Student Association Senate met for the first time this academic year Monday night in a packed Funger Hall classroom to review summer accomplishments and approve a variety of SA President Julia Susuni's nominations to various SA Cabinet posts, Student boards and student representatives to the Faculty Senate.
Susuni reported that she and Vice President Kostas Skordalos were able to work with administrators to successfully increase the number of printing kiosks on campus, expand space and staff for the University Counseling Center, and after many years of student leaders advocating, work out the details to have many frequent food trucks on campus accept GWorld cards as a form of payment.
The Senate itself spent the majority of the evening approving Susuni's appointments to an open SA Executive Cabinet position, the SA Student Court, and seven Student Representatives to the Faculty Senate. Susuni said that this is the first time in several years that there will be student representatives attending Faculty Senate committee meetings. Susuni hopes that this will allow the SA and the Faculty Senate to work together on projects of mutual interest.
"There is a need for students to voice their opinions through as many channels as possible," Susuni said after the meeting. "Putting students on the Faculty Senate allows us to take advantage of all the resources we have."
One surprise at the meeting was an announcement Senator Chris Stillwell (ESIA Undergrad) made. Stillwell announced that a Greek Life Caucus was being formed in the Senate in response to the discussions regarding Greek Life housing policies that took place this summer between GW student leaders, administrators, and neighbors in Foggy Bottom. Senator Nick Gumas (CCAS Undergrad) questioned the proposal arguing that there is a perception that the Senate already overly focuses heavily on Greek life because many Senators are themselves in fraternities and sororities.
Following the meeting Senator Daniel Egel-Weiss, (Undergrad At Large) who has agreed to become a member of the Caucus, said that the Caucus already had a half-dozen Senators agree to join and that more are interested in signing-up.
"Many members of the SA called for this Caucus," Egel-Weiss explained. "Any senator may sit in on the Caucus' meetings and there is no official capacity in which the caucus operates."
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It's fundamentally untrue that students have not been appointed to faculty senate committee. As recently as the Richardson administration students were appointed to the standing facsen committees. The issue has always been the faculty senate actually inviting the students to the committee meetings.
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