Student Senate Meeting Minutes

Ex Officio Report

Thursday’s ex officio report came from Pascal Petter, director of dining services; Tom Caccavo, CulinArt regional district manager; and Larry Lee, associate dean of student affairs for operations. Lee and Petter, who are new to Carnegie Mellon, discussed their respective roles and their plans for dining and campus life.

Caccavo, Lee, and Petter also addressed current CulinArt contract negotiations and protests recently staged by CulinArt employees. The speakers took questions from several Senators about both the CulinArt protests and the future of housing and dining at Carnegie Mellon.

The speakers also discussed changes that they were planning to make to campus housing and dining, including a better system for getting comments and questions from students.

Vacancy Elections

Two new Senators were inducted after this week’s vacancy elections. First-year CIT student Nkindé Ambalo and sophomore electrical and computer engineering major Nandini Ramakrishnan are now Senators. Ambalo and Ramakrishnan both gave brief speeches about their experience and motivation for being in Senate.

Ramakrishnan, as a sophomore, wanted to get involved in Senate her first year at Carnegie Mellon but only now has the time.

Ambalo has extensive experience in student government and Model United Nations from his high school.

Another vacancy election will be held next week for the empty seat in the Tepper School of Business. There are still three empty seats in CIT, three in CFA, and one in SCS.

Sergeant-at-Arms

Vaasavi Unnava, a first-year economics major, gave a brief speech before the Senate voted that she become Sergeant-at-Arms.

Unnava will handle meeting logistics, such as creating slide shows based on the agenda, and will hold the Senate tablecloth.

Members-at-Large

Several new members-at-large were also inducted on Thursday. To become a member-at-large, a student must attend at least three Senate meetings and be nominated by a Senator.

All of the potential members-at-large introduced themselves and talked about why they wanted to get involved in Senate before the Senate body voted for their induction.