There were 13 out of 15 senators present for the student senate’s meeting Wednesday making this the second meeting to fail to meet quorum in a row and the fourth of nine meetings this semester.

The senate is required to have at least 15 senators present for a meeting to reach quorum. Without quorum, the senate cannot hold official business, like voting on action items, they can only have unofficial discussions.

Despite the unofficial meeting, Speaker of the Senate Jasmine Yusef appointed Samaria Rosenthal, a junior psychology major, to the senate. 

Because quorum was not met, Rosenthal was sworn in, but could not vote on senate bills until she became an official senator at an official meeting. The swearing in of Rosenthal will be approved at the next official meeting.

Rosenthal is a transfer student who transferred from Kankakee Community College. While there, Rosenthal was part of Student Government.

Rosenthal enjoys using her voice to help students, which is why she originally joined Student Government in the first place. She wanted to continue doing so at Eastern.

This was the second meeting Rosenthal was at, after hoping to be sworn in and voting at the last meeting. 

After being at two meetings, Rosenthal began seeing the voice she was going to have, as well as some differences between the student governments she was a part of.

“[In] the first couple meetings that I’ve seen is that we have a whole table rather than us, [Student Government at Kankakee Community College] didn’t have a room, we didn’t have space to actually do it,” Rosenthal said. “We have to find our own space, but here there’s a lot of changes that I noticed. We have a senate so everybody has a spot and has a voice rather than at the other, we just have like random members of the community.”

Rosenthal looks forward to using her voice and wants to see more diverse events for Eastern students as well. She wants to see programs that support minorities on campus.

“Maybe more of a probably like more Latino heritage month, a little bit of African American History Month and things like that,” Rosenthal said. “So maybe more events with African Americans and Latinos and Asian and Pacific Islanders, more than just the common things that we can most likely see on an everyday basis.”

Despite not meeting quorum, the senate still had a lot to discuss.

Nidhi Patel, the vice president for academic affairs, is hosting a program in the 24-hour lounge from noon to 2 p.m. on Nov. 9. The program titled, Giving Thanks with the Prez, features supplies for writing thank you notes to your professors and a hot chocolate bar.

There was also an update on the end of Jasmine Yusef’s term as Speaker of the Senate.

Nominations will take place on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Arcola/Tuscola room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union, after originally being set for Nov. 30 at the same time.

The elections will take place on Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. at the first senate on the go meeting of the semester. The elections were supposed to take place on Dec. 7, but cannot because the senate will not meet prior to finals week.

The senate on the go meeting location for the Nov. 30 meeting has not been determined.

Katja Benz can be reached at 581-2812 or at kkbenz@eiu.edu.