At a special session held Tuesday night, the ASASUD Senate appointed seven new senators, which brings the current number of senators to 12 and leaves two spots open.
The new senators are journalism freshmen Andres Cano and Amy Villarreal for the two freshmen spots, undeclared freshman Shannon Langford for University College, special education sophomore Lindsay Fletcher for the College of Teacher Education and Leadership, journalism freshman Jessica Abercrombie for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, nursing sophomore Joel Bumanglag for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation and nonprofit leadership and management junior Justin Hoffman for Barrett, the Honors College.
The appointments come after the Senate held their first meeting on Sept. 18 with only five of 14 Senate spots filled. After the special session, University College and the College of Teacher Education and Leadership each have one vacant Senate spot.
Senior Sen. Charlie Jannetto, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said it’s always better to have more people involved and have more voices.
“It’s good that we’ll have a lot more people involved in student government, especially since right now we only have five of us,” Jannetto said. “That’s kind of disproportionate to the number of students on the campus.”
Jannetto, who become the sole senator for his school after journalism sophomore Josh Frigerio resigned before the first Senate meeting, said he is excited to work with Abercrombie.
“I was sad to see Josh (Frigerio) go as a senator, so it’s good to have someone to work with, to have another point of view,” Jannetto said. “It’ll be good to get her perspective as someone just coming into the school.”
Hoffman, who lives in Tempe, said that as one of the newly appointed senators, he will work to represent Barrett, the Honors College, as well as downtown students who don’t live on campus.
“It’s important to recognize the fact that the Downtown campus will only have some students that stay at Taylor Place,” Hoffman said. “A lot of students are actually students that travel to and from the Downtown campus to Tempe, so there needs to be programming and support for those students as well.”
Hoffman said it’s exciting that Downtown campus students are finally getting a full representation.
“We’ll be able to make decisions that encompass a lot more people’s view points,” Hoffman said. “We’ll be able to brainstorm and truly help out the students just because there’s going to be more ideas and creative juices,”
Hoffman also said it is important to fill the remaining two spots.
“It’s always necessary to have a full Senate board just so that everyone can get equal representation,” Hoffman said. “That’s the whole point of having senators.”
Also appointed were undeclared junior Cameron Polom and journalism freshman Danielle Chavez to the Student Fee Committee and journalism freshman Hana Al-Abadi to the Judiciary Board. ASASUD Vice President Beth Wischnia said nursing freshmen Fiona Verceles and Sabrina Barajas will also be offered positions on the student fee committee.
Wischnia said she was really happy about all of the appointments made at the special session.
“We have a really good and enthusiastic new team,” Wischnia said. “Now we can start talking to more students one on one, start moving on with our plans for the year and get in the swing of things.”
Contact the reporter at salvador.rodriguez@asu.edu
