Student Senate off and running
This year, Senate has gotten off to a great start.
Our Senators are serving the students well and have been veryactive around campus doing things all the way from helping promoteMustang Athletics to co-sponsoring “Rock theBoulevard.” While the Senate is busy across campus, we arealso working on improving from within.
This year, the Student Senate will have a Membership Task Forcethat will look at how we represent the SMU Student Body.
Currently, our membership is done by school, with senators fromCox, Dedman Undergraduate, Engineering, Meadows, Perkins School ofTheology and the Dedman School of Law. In addition, we also havefour first-year senators as well as a senator from theAfrican-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American andInternational communities.
The underlying question is, under our current structure, are webest representing the SMU Student Body? This question is one thatthe task force will address over the course of the year.
In order to answer this question, the Membership Task Force iscurrently busy gathering information. We are collecting electioncodes from several of our benchmark and operation schools,interviewing several student organizations, students, and staffmembers and surveying the Student Senators. After collecting all ofour research, we will be spending time reviewing everything andreevaluating SMU’s Election Code and the Student Senaterepresentational model.
It has been several years since the Student Senate Election Codeand representational model have been seriously reviewed. In orderto make sure that we are operating under the best possiblestructure, it is vital that this research be done. It is themission of the task force to ensure that each student at SMU isrepresented and represented well.
The task force plans on spending the first semester researching,evaluating and drafting a proposal of changes to the StudentSenate. The proposal will be made to the Student Senate secondsemester. All suggested changes will have to be approved by theStudent Senate in order to go into effect.
We and the members of the task force encourage any input thatyou have regarding Student Senate membership. If you have anyquestions, comments, or concerns please contact Lyndsey Hummert at[email protected] or Chip Hiemenz at [email protected].We look forward to continuing to serve you throughout the year!
Chip Hiemenz is the Student Body President. He can be reachedat [email protected].
Lyndsey Hummert is a Dedman II Senator. She may be reached [email protected].
Student Senate off and running
