Notre Dame’s student senate convened Wednesday night in the Mendoza College of Business for its sixth meeting of the spring semester. During the meeting, the senate tabled a proposal to add a sustainability requirement to Hall of the Year scoring and nominated the 2023-24 Judicial Council President and Student Union Board (SUB) Executive Director. They also passed three orders suspending class council and hall elections.
Student body vice president Sofie Stitt opened the meeting with general announcements about campus-wide events happening this week.
Two ongoing initiatives, “Brain Foods Week” and “Steps to Wellness Week,” have been taking place with the aim to promote students’ health and well-being. Bishop Robert Baron will also be visiting campus this Thursday to deliver a lecture titled, “What Makes a University Catholic.”
The senate then moved to general orders and spent the majority of the meeting discussing resolutionSS2223-15.
The resolution calls to add sustainability as a requirement to Hall of the Year scoring as a part of the “Initiative Participation” category. Abbey Donahue, Cavanaugh Hall Senator, communicated that the purpose is to reflect the wants of the student body and help the University achieve its commitment to sustainability.
“We don’t want to punish dorms, and we also don’t want the only way to get credit through the sustainability cup,” Donahue said.
The proposal was met with concerns about the risk of redundancy, namely that Hall of the Year scoring already accounts for sustainability through the Rockne requirements. Hall president council (HPC) co-chairs Lauryn Pugh and Jinny Gouldin conveyed their desire to wait on approving the matter until the new HPC co-chairs are elected. Seeing as the resolution would go into effect next year, Senator Hunter Brooke from Carroll Hall expressed a similar concern.
“I think the idea behind it and the importance of sustainability in considering hall of the year is crucial. I would just want to make sure that the new co-chairs are fully on board with everything that was put through,” Brooke said.
After much debate, the senate voted to table the resolution — meaning that it would be taken off the agenda, but available for future consideration.
The senate then moved to approve Koryn Isa for the 2023-24 Judicial Council President. Current Judicial Council President Madison Nemeth spoke on her behalf and expressed her immense support for this nomination.
“I am more than confident that Koryn’s term will encourage ethical peer leadership, strengthen the credibility of the Judicial Council and creatively engage the student body through elections,” she said.
Isa received a unanimous vote, followed by a similar unanimous vote to approve Lily Condodina as the Student Board Executive Director for 2023-2024.
The senate then quickly moved three orders,SO2223-23, SO2223-24, and SO2223-25,to general orders in order to approve the suspension of hall and class council elections if there is a candidate running unopposed.
Finally, senators were reminded to attend their required Hall of the Year grading training. Important announcements from the senators for the week included hall elections taking place Thursday, Knot Hall’s Signature Event, “The Aidan Project,” taking place Saturday, and a reminder that there are 359 days until the next Keenan Revue.
