ASG elects three new senators and passes bill regarding course textbook requirements

At its Feb. 15 meeting, Miami University’s Associated Student Government (ASG) held Senator-at-Large elections, appointed committee members and passed three pieces of legislation.

Three candidates – first-year psychology and critical race and ethnic studies major Marcella-Alysia Argüello, sophomore political science and neuroscience major Jacob Batchelor, and first-year university studies major Lucas Orlando – ran for Senator-at-Large seats.

Senators-at-Large represent the entire student body instead of specific locations or academic divisions.

Argüello said she would promote student health by educating students about the dangers of vaping if elected.

Batchelor said he would like to increase communication with the administration and keep students informed about ASG activities.

Orlando said he wants to represent student concerns because students can feel as though they have no power against the administration.

All three were elected.

After the Senator-At-Large election, a steering committee seat election was held as well as an appointment to the judicial council.

On-Campus Senators Laura Giaquinto and Ryan Parker were nominated from the floor for the steering committee seat.

“I had a lot of really great senators and leadership members take me under their wing last semester,” Parker said. “And given the new steering policies of meeting one-on-one to discuss new initiatives and office hours, that would provide me the opportunity to reach out to new senators.”

Parker was elected.

The first piece of legislation passed was a bill to change the guidelines for special elections voting. Previously, filling senate seats was challenging as a senator could vote that they do not have confidence in a candidate, keeping the candidate from being elected.

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The bill, authored by College of Arts & Science Academic Senator Eli Davies, would require a supermajority of two-thirds of no-confidence votes in order for declaring no-confidence to succeed.

The bill passed with an overwhelming majority.

Next, ASG voted to approve the 2022-2023 Student Body President and Vice President Elections packet. The packet includes the election rules, the ASG bylaws and the official petition. After correcting some typos, senators unanimously approved the packet.

The last order of business was a bill that would require professors to inform students of course textbook requirements no less than a month before a new semester begins. Senator-At-Large Ethan Stack, the author of the bill, had the idea after not being able to find what textbooks were required on BannerWeb for classes last spring.

“I was forced to email my professors individually and ask them for information as to what we needed and where to find them,” Stack said.

Stack said passing the bill would help students be prepared for classes before they begin.

“[Students] like to be prepared when they walk in day one, and this legislation largely is going to affect everybody positively by giving them plenty of prior information and plenty of leeway to go ahead and get the materials they need to excel academically prior to the beginning of the academic term,” Stack said.

The bill passed with an overwhelming majority.

ASG’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, Feb. 22 in the Joslin Senate Chamber.

hogemh@miamioh.edu