This semester, for the first time ever, The Record has covered every Student Senate meeting in some capacity with our new column, “Student Senate summary.” I’ve personally attended every meeting, and done the reporting, (don’t tell my staff, but I plan on delegating it at some point soon) which has been an eye opening experience and prompted the question, what should the role of Student Senate be at Goshen College in 2025?

There have been five meetings so far this semester. The first four were comprised of myself, the actual senate and, for two of the meetings, a friend of one of the senate members, who attended just for the sake of attending – a good thing, more people should do that!

This most recent meeting featured two other guests: Patty Hartshorn, director of health and wellness and Title IX coordinator, and Aaliah Higareda, the digital editor for The Record and the president of the Art Club. 

You can read my write up of what happened in the meeting in the column on page six, but what I wanted to highlight is Higareda’s contribution to the meeting. She had identified a problem – it’s hard for non first-years to get involved with clubs because the club fair only happens during orientation week – and came to the meeting with a proposal: do another one in the second semester so that everyone has a chance to get involved with something new. 

And you know what? Everyone in the room had the exact same reaction: This is a really good idea, we should probably do it. 

I know that everyone reading this has some sort of problem with Goshen College; that’s part of life. But what are you going to do about it? Some people choose to complain privately to their friends, and nothing changes. It’s really unfortunate that there’s no trash cans outside the apartments, if only there was literally anyone you could tell about it. 

Some people choose to take advantage of the resources they have, and are able to effect change. That’s the point of Student Senate — they’re there for you!

This brings me to the actual senate. Recently they made the decision to move to biweekly meetings, instead of weekly, citing low engagement as a main reason. While I understand the motives, I’m disappointed for two reasons. 

One is that it makes it more difficult for students to get in front of the senate if they have a matter to bring up. Student Senate’s duty is to serve the students, and making it more difficult to get a meeting with them by halving the amount of meetings they have, doesn’t further that goal. Students now have to remember if this is an on week or an off week, which is just another barrier to engagement. 

Secondly, cutting the frequency of meetings sends the message to other students that what the senate is doing isn’t important. While I don’t think this is true — Student Senate can do important work when utilized correctly — I simply think the message they’re sending devalues the work they do.  

When the senate is utilized by students it can work really well. I saw it happen on Monday. But if nobody attends the meetings, then there isn’t much point.

Additionally, cutting the meetings doesn’t help solve that problem, it only makes it worse. 

Next Monday is an off week – I encourage you all to attend the next meeting March 10, at 6 p.m. in the Mark Comunity Room in Westlawn, across from the dining hall. Go complain about fire alarms and broken lamp poles and parking tickets and weight room drama and elevators and broken water fountains. 

Go crazy.