On Sept. 21, the Dartmouth Student Government Senate met for its first weekly meeting of the fall term. Led by student body president Sabik Jawad ’26, the Senate unanimously passed the Student Issues Task Force resolution to design and administer the student issues survey. It also discussed potential changes to standard operating procedures, special Senate elections and dining issues.
Jawad shared that approximately 1,500 Dartmouth undergraduates participate in the student issues survey each year. The high number of responses offers “good data” to inform DSG’s work and advocacy, Jawad explained. Jawad proposed creating a separate task force for this year’s survey because previous years’ surveys “dominated” the work of other committees.
North Park senator Jude Poirier ’28 noted that the student issues survey is the “backbone of DSG” but that it was often “put on the back burner” by the Committee on Student Life, on which he served last year.
“I think [a task force] is really necessary,” Poirier said. “Last year on Student Life, basically no student issue survey stuff got done.”
The Senate unanimously approved the creation of the Student Issues Task Force, with more discussions to be held next week regarding task force attendance policies. The task force will be led by at least one director and composed of DSG senators and representatives.
Student body vice president Favion Harvard ’26 proposed the Senate adopt Robert’s Rules of Order, a standard manual for parliamentary procedure, to be voted on next week. Currently, administrative processes and committee announcements take up time during meetings, Harvard explained. Harvard said he hoped the rules would allow meetings to “run a lot faster” by reducing administrative processes.
Harvard’s proposal continued a discussion about parliamentary procedure introduced by Jawad during the final meeting of the 2024-25 senate and the goals of the constitutional task force he and former senators JJ Dega ’26 and Jack Wisdom ’26 worked to establish at the end of winter term this year. At the recent fall meeting, Poirier brought concerns of this parliamentary procedure not being “needed all the time” and suggested it being used only for “really heated discussions.”
Jawad also proposed creating a council on dining with student representation to offer veto power over dining policies, providing “more institutionalized student input” to address what he called dining’s “significant struggles.”
These include student frustrations with the layout changes at Novack Cafe. During discussion, West House senator Reece Sharp ’28 said she believed the council would be a step towards providing accountability and student input when it comes to dining.
“Dining has gone on its own journey in the past few years, and something needs to oversee it,” Sharp said.
Jawad proposed holding a special election to fill the South House Class of 2027 seat — which was vacated after Ian McKenna ’27 stepped down — rather than the standard procedure of an application and interview process by the Senate with potential candidates. Jawad said he wants a special election process because there will soon be elections for the freshman Senate.
Sharp said she was concerned about potential low turnout in a special election and suggested maintaining standard procedures.
During the closed session of the Senate, DSG confirmed executive representatives for the fall term. Tamia Kelly ’27 was appointed chief of staff, Vani Miglani ’28 was appointed deputy chief of staff, Ana Arzoumanidis ’28 was appointed project director, Jinlin Cai ’26 and Evan Gerson ’27 were appointed town affairs, Jason Zhu ’28 was appointed finance director, Hanna Bilgin ’28 was appointed student life chair, Julia Zichy ’27 was appointed health and wellness chair, Sharp was appointed communications director, Poirier was appointed student issues director and Mary Sherrard ’28 and Sudiptha Paul ’27 were appointed first year engagement directors.
DSG Senate meetings occur weekly on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Collis 101 and are open to all students.
