As Tony Chen, USG’s president, mentioned in an article in The Ticker’s summer edition, we will be providing weekly information about USG via Baruch’s student newspaper. This week, I wanted to introduce you to some fun facts about USG’s weekly senate meetings and tell you a little bit about myself.

The Senate is composed of 19 senators each representing approximately 1,000 Baruch students. Our representative senators are encouraged to vote on different issues with the needs of the student body in mind.

The vice president is the chair of the senate and calls the meeting to order. It is my job to send out the agenda of the meeting weekly and make sure it goes as planned.

One thing some people may not know is that these meetings are open to the public, which means anyone can sit in and listen. This also means that people from the public can express their opinions with what is occurring at CUNY and speak up on topics.

If someone would like to speak about something concerning the Baruch community, they can email me prior to the meeting at briana.staten@usgbaruch.com in order to talk about the issue and add it to the next meeting’s agenda.

We think it is very important to have students come in and listen to what is being said at the table and object if they disagree. So, I invite everyone to come out and voice their opinions this year.

Typically, our senate meetings take place every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Newman Vertical Campus in room 3-270. Since all campus activities are remote this semester as a result of COVID-19, our weekly senate meetings have been taking place via Zoom. The link to join is:

Meeting ID: 964 9837 6547
Passcode: USG2020

If we do go back to campus for the spring semester, our usual location for the senate meetings may change due to social distancing procedures. Now that everyone knows the basics of the USG Senate, I want to tell you all a little bit about myself.

I am currently a junior here at Baruch majoring in advertising, marketing and communications. I have been a part of USG for about one and a half years as the vice president of academic affairs, where I worked alongside faculty to make sure they keep the student view in mind when they are deciding on a policy.

Baruch has been my second home for the past two years, and I love serving and improving the Bearcat community in any way possible. If you have any ideas in mind for improvements and need someone to connect with, definitely reach out to me. Procedures may not always work out as quickly as planned, but I’m here to listen and assist.