First Student Congress of the year discusses intentions

Student Congress met for the 98th session on Tuesday night and discussed plans for upcoming school year.

What happened?

The chairs of the four committees — Ethics, Oversight and Advocacy, Finance and Rules and Judiciary — presented plans for the new school year and Student Body President Bradley Opere made an appearance. He applauded congress for their hard work and said he hopes to build a better relationship between the executive and legislative branches this year.

Who spoke?

Speaker of Student Congress Cole Simons delivered plans to revive select committees, which will target specific problems on campus. These committees will  focus on four aspects of campus life: academics, development, climate and health.

“Select committees are something we started last year,” Simons said. “They really focused us in on different sections of issues on campus.”

The select committees are intended to grant Congress more flexibility. Simons said they help Congress members avoid getting tied up with the standing committees, which may have difficulty addressing specific problems on campus.

“These select committees are our active arms. We’re working on issues with other organizations, with administration across campus,” he said.

Director of State and External Affairs Wilson Sink outlined a theme for the year made up of three parts: democratic engagement, town, state and national relations, University system relations. Democratic engagement will be the focus throughout the fall semester.

Sink said he is focused on increasing voter registration on campus, but also improving voter awareness.

“We want to make sure we’re educating voters,” he said. “We’re making sure that people are informed when making decisions, and are not just able to vote, but able to vote intelligently.”

Sink also hopes to educate voters on campus by bringing speakers to the University.

“We intend to bring speakers to campus to talk about issues, and ideally to bring candidates as well,” he said. “We think the best way to raise awareness for our students is to bring the candidates here themselves and have them advocate for their issues and bring awareness to the election itself.”

He said there are also plans to improve Congress’s relationship with Margaret Spellings and the Board of Governors.

“She is — as are all of the governors — very important to our education and has an impact on all our daily lives,” he said.

Why was this meeting important?

This session was the first formal meeting between Student Body President Opere and Congress. He revealed his plans to build a better relationship between the executive and legislative branches. He said student government owes it to the students to focus on important issues and avoid arguing.

Speaker Simons pointed out potential room for improvement and asked Congress members to brainstorm how they might reach out to students.

When are they meeting again?

Full Congress meets every two weeks while the committees meet on alternating weeks.

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