The Illinois Student Senate will hold an election for vice president-external at its Wednesday meeting. Former Vice President-external Ryan Young resigned at the end of the first semester.
The senate will also hold an election for a public relations committee chair following Rachael Markwell’s resignation before second semester began. They are also looking to fill a member spot on the IT governance executive committee because Young was on this committee before his resignation.
The senate will also discuss a proposal for a University Student Government Conference, which is sponsored by senator Jim Maskeri, senior in LAS.
“We were talking with faculty members just about University shared governance and where the students fit into that process,” Maskeri said. “Out of that conversation, we really came to the realization that the academic professionals have a group at the University level, the civil service members have a group, the faculty has a group — the students however do not have a University-wide conference where student government leaders can get together and talk about University-wide issues.”
He said the student senate mainly approaches campuswide issues, but this would be a chance to take on University-wide issues across all three campuses, such as enrollment management, student affairs, tuition, budget and other issues that affect the entire University of Illinois system.
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“There’s a whole host of issues that really reach the whole student populace,” Maskeri said.
He said working alongside student government leaders from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Springfield would be beneficial to the needs of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Included in the Jan. 23 senate agenda is a Charter of the University Student Government Conference. This charter lays out the proposed guidelines of the conference, which will be made up of 15 members.
Shao Guo, vice president-internal, said the last time a student government conference was attempted was in the 2008-09 academic year. He said it didn’t have the support from the administration or faculty it needed.
Maskeri said the structure of the University Student Government Conference may be similar to the current structure of the University Senates Conference, but the proposal is in the early stages.
“This group will allow us as students to speak as a unified University student body rather than as three individual campus student bodies,” he said. “We’ll be able to dialogue directly with the President of the University.”
Maskeri said the first step is to discuss the legislation in student senate and gain support there before moving on to student colleagues at other campuses.
Tyler can be reached at [email protected].
