The Undergraduate Student Government Senate met Tuesday night for the first time this semester to discuss student engagement, various nominations and amendments to pending bills.

One issue discussed was changes to “Dear USG” by the Academic Culture Assembly. “Dear USG” is an annual event that invites students to write letters on USG proposals and potential initiatives they would like to see. The event aims to foster a more inclusive and engaging environment on campus through student participation. However, not many students have engaged with the event, making it difficult to enact changes according to student responses.

“Even though these students voiced concerns or brought up new initiatives,” said co-executive director of ACA Brian Nonnas. “We can’t really do much in terms of following up with these initiatives or proposing changes.” 

USG’s detached connection with legislative branches has prevented it from forwarding initiatives, said Hunter Black, co-executive director of Academic Culture Assembly. To address this, ACA plans to hold “Dear USG” over the course of a week and host a meet-and-greet panel between students and senators. The panel will provide opportunities for senators to speak on projects that are in motion. 

Following the Academic Culture Assembly’s presentation, various students were nominated for positions within USG. 

Jake Stemmons, a senior majoring in economics and finance, was nominated for the position of external senior executive aid. The position involves handling funding, communications and general outreach to the Board of Presidents.

Andrew Papazyan, a junior majoring in law, history and culture was nominated as an associate justice in the judicial branch of the organization. Papazyan’s knowledge of elections surrounding ranked-choice voting will support USG’s establishment of this system for its first year.

Papazyan said the challenge of implementing ranked-choice voting lies in the student body knowing how to establish it. Papazyan is currently working with the Judicial Council to educate the student body on ranked-choice voting in order to meet his goals.

“One of my personal goals is to make sure every student knows what they need to do in elections and they can number the order of candidates so that they can transition into ranked choice voting,” Papazyan said. 

JaCara Kelley, a junior majoring in biochemistry, was confirmed as the associate director of the social and recreational startup.

Amendments to bills included SB 143-05, which lowered the maximum amount of money that a recognized student organization can receive from $14,000 to $8,000. SB 143-06 reformed the office hours requirements for officials. Some positions require eight hours of office time, so they can now interact with programming assemblies to meet that target.