This Week in Senate: April 19, 2021
On Monday 4/19, the Northeastern Undergraduate Senate convened for its final meeting of the 2020-21 academic year. To begin, the Senate heard from Dr. Christine Civiletto, the Interim Director of UHCS, about the ongoing services UHCS has been providing to students. In particular, she highlighted the Find@Northeastern support line available to all full time students anywhere in the world. This line connects callers to a licensed clinician and can then be referred to a clinician in their area (and they get up to 10 free visits per academic year). Following her presentation, Dr. Civiletto made herself available for questions. Questions raised covered availability of in-person care internationally, the wait times for mental health care referral services, UHCS’s plan to accommodate the anticipated incoming bulge class, Northeastern’s (low) student:clinician ratio, plans to improve cultural competency within UHCS, plans to work with cultural centers on campus, problems working with the Disability Resource Center (DRC), and whether UHCS plans on adding new Orientation material concerning mental health (as outlined in the referendum question passed).
Following a slew of emotional leadership addresses, the Senate moved into 2021-2022 Leadership Confirmations. Each nominee was given 5 minutes to talk before moving into Q&A, followed by an Executive Session for debate. Voting was then done via secret ballot. By this process, the following nominees were confirmed:
Sergeant-At-Arms: Jacob Hochadel
Parliamentarian: Nicole Miranda
Executive Director of Communications: Rhea Tipnis
Executive Director of Events: Gabby Barker
Chief of Staff: Abigail Sodergren
Director of Information Management: Billy Opet
Following these confirmations, legislation SS-SP-21-117 was presented and debated. This piece of legislation calls on Northeastern to purchase solar-powered seating options on campus so that students can sustainably charge their devices while being outdoors. As per usual, the authors were given 10 minutes to present and for Q&A. The SGA bylaws were then suspended to allow for the legislation to be voted on during the meeting (since it was the last meeting of the semester). The legislation was passed by unanimous consent.
The remainder of the meeting was spent presenting four different awards: Senator of the Month (March), Senator of the Semester, the Gail Olytha Faculty Support Award, and the Gerald H. Herman Service and Dedication Award. These were awarded to:
Senator of the Month (March): Shriya Thangada
Senators of the Semester: Deeraj Mirpuri, Matthew Coleman
Gail Olytha Faculty Support Award: Dean Bob Jose
Gerald H. Herman Service and Dedication Award: Keiler Dunbar
This final meeting of the 2020-2021 Academic Year was adjourned at 11:44 PM.
