Clarification appended.
The 2017-18 Ohio University Student Senate will officially meet for the first time at its general body meeting Wednesday.
Assistant Chief of Staff Amal Afyouni said she is excited because senate spent the summer preparing for this school year and its meetings.
“This year we have a really clear vision and goals,” Afyouni said. “We’ll get a lot done. Wednesday will be exciting because it’s when everyone finally meets each other to see what the plan for the semester is.”
Senate will vote on six resolutions, three of which concern budget.
“Zach has been working hard to make sure budgets are in place,” PR Director Sara Defibaugh said.
Senate will vote on a resolution to continue holding weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m.
“Having biweekly meetings limits the interaction with the student body,” the resolution states. “It is more productive to have short, frequent meetings.”
Senate will also vote on parliamentary procedure and the format of its legislation.
The proposed framework is Robert’s Rules of Order, which the resolution calls “the most well-organized” as well as most commonly used framework of parliamentary procedure.
“Students of Ohio University deserve a Parliamentary Procedure which is easy for them to participate in and useful to them outside of the scope of Student Senate,” the resolution says.
The proposed format of legislation would “allow for easier discussion” by implementing stricter rules for resolutions to follow. For example, all resolutions would use Times New Roman, 12-point font and have each of the lines of their text numbered.
Senate will vote on three budget resolutions to allocate funds to the Senate Appropriations Commission and two Student Senate-mandated programs, Take Back the Night and Pride Week.
The bills will decide how to allocate $10,000 leftover from the rollback of the Bobcat Readership Program, which was voted on in last year’s senate.
One bill gives the entire $10,000 to Senate Appropriations Commission. Another splits the funds equally between Senate Appropriations Commission and the senate-mandated programs, which would give the two events $2,500 each. The third splits the money between the two events and excludes Senate Appropriations Commission.
Defibaugh said all commissions worked hard over the summer to begin planning out their goals and events, such as Take Back the Night.
She added that senate’s website will be up in the next few weeks.
“Now everyone is finally able to see what’s happening,” Defibaugh said. “It’s exciting for the media team to finally be able to begin promoting. We worked hard over the summer to get the ball rolling."
Clarification: The article has been updated to clarify that the bill is an internal resolution. The photo has also been updated.
