For a large part of this year, I have been attending Student Senate meetings on Fridays. The student government is a self-governing body consisting of representatives across The New School. The body currently consists of 17 individuals, 3 serving as Co-Chairs elected each semester by the USS. The Co-Chairs handle administrative tasks and guide the student agenda, handling and monitoring representative deliberation, communication with the administration, outreach to programs within the school, pursuing initiatives, and overseeing committees within the Senate. Other student senators can serve in small committees, dedicated to additional tasks like Communications, Finances, or an administrative role as Chief of Staff. Currently, the Student Senate has two communication directors (Frank James Martinez-Chevez and Lungowe Zeko), one treasurer (Alexandra “Lex” Letellier), a chief of staff (Gus Sampaio- as of 4.12, was Joey Marino).
The Co-Chairs
The Co-Chairs are Marios Pavlakis, Claire Stevens, and Katie Tzivanis. Mario is a second-semester senior, having served on student senate since 2017 after transferring here. From Greece, Mario has extensive knowledge in foreign languages, speaking a total of 5 languages, and heavy knowledge of business, being the Oikos NYC VP. Claire Stevens, a freshman at Lang, pursuing Global Studies and Politics who is also heavily involved with other programs at TNS, like SLI. Lastly, Lang student Katie Tzivanis studying Urban Studies and Politics serves as a Co-Chair, with a huge passion for aiding food insecurity issues. Most recently, Katie’s food insecurity initiative Shared Meals came to TNS, an app allowing students to transfer extra dining dollars to students who cannot afford food, in addition to providing a platform to share where leftovers from meetings and events are on campus.
Changes: Redrafting of the Constitution
current constitution being updated: http://www.ussnewschool.com/constitution
For the past several meetings, the Co-Chairs have been discussing and revising the constitution from 2007, updating policies and positions to expand the Senate. Their goal is to refine the mission statement, engage more with students/make them more aware, increase funding for student initiatives, and eventually double the size of the student senate. Currently, meetings have consisted of drafting language for the Consitution, holding events for students to voice their opinions on what they want and need from USS, voting/editing changes made and deciding what gradual and what immediate changes to make. One example is the amount of Student Senate positions open. Some schools are more engaged than others, particularly Lang and Parsons. While their seats always remain full, smaller schools or graduate schools like NSSR or CoPA have lower senatorship, which could cause a school domination problem within the Senate if seats doubled and only Parsons/Lang students ran to fill all of the available seats. This problem discussed at several meetings was addressed by expanding each school’s available seats by 1-2 spots. Additionally, other motions that have taken place within the past few weeks include the combination of all the Jazz/music Schools into 1 body, expanding their spots by one.
The Current Agenda vs. The New One to Come
Another major change voted on within the Constitution is how the meetings will be run and when/what time. Currently, meetings are held in room 318 from 6 pm to usually 9 pm. Usually, the first 30 minutes are “open forum”, where anyone from the University can make announcements to the body (eg. upcoming events, updates on initiatives, voices of concern, etc). Afterwards, funding proposals occur, where students/clubs and organizations can present a proposal and request funding for an event that all have the idea of creating a stronger community and positive impact on the school. After all the proposals, proposees leave the room and senators vote on which proposals to fund. The Senate then moves on to other votes/conversations/administrative tasks needing USS input, which is then followed by a last call for the open forum before being adjourned.
In the new Constitution, rather than having funding, general senatorship, and student advocacy meetings all-in-one each Friday, the Senate is proposing that each department is designated a Friday and that the committees expand beyond the one or two directors/positions held currently. For the next semester to come, meetings will now be held at the common time- 3-3:55, a time where no school is scheduled to have class at all. The meetings will be broken up into General Senate Meetings (1st Friday of every month) and Committee meetings (2nd and 4th Fridays of every month). Each USS senator will be required to serve on at least one committee, those including Communications, Student Advocacy & Engagement and the Finance committee. Additionally, each committee will have their own times to meet (most likely filled in the hole for the 2nd Friday of each month).
Photo Observations
Hand Notes + Sketches From Meetings
1.25 meeting:
4. 5 meeting:
4. 12 meeting:
Personal Observations
In attending several of the meetings, once a systematic problem I have noticed is the proportion of time spent in relation to where senators desire a time of their meetings to be spent. On average, funding proposals and voting can take anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours. One issue is that because the Treasurer doesn’t have a committee of senators, it is nearly impossible to communicate and receive all necessary documents and itemized budgets before proposals and vet each of the presentations beforehand. In term, the inability to pre-check proposals in-depth for substance, rather than current checking with proposee inquiries, can lead to long presentations and discussions on proposals that do not meet funding guidelines at all. This has been seen several times while I have been present in meetings, with violations from paying students and proposes for work to asking for money for alcohol (for grad student events), to outrageous demands on projects without advisors or commitment to get projects done.
This problem, one I have even spoken on at meetings, is being addressed greatly in the new constitution, as funding takes up both the most time of meetings and the most amount of the USS budget (80%, which is roughly $100,000). In the new semester to come, the finance committee will be approving all proposals 3 weeks prior to their presentation, reinforcing the guidelines that funding be requested in advance. As a hopeful future participant, I am excited to see what this change will allow the government to do and accomplish.
