The Ithaca College Student Governance Council met Nov. 3 to discuss progress on initiatives and to appoint candidates to the Appropriations Committee as well as the position of Class of 2028 senator.
Sophomore Jamie Sweren was reviewed by the council to take over the Class of 2028 senator position after sophomore Manan Maini stepped down. Sweren said she wants to have better communication between organizations on campus. She said she is involved in 11 different clubs and has seen first-hand how this communication can be improved.
“I want my voice to be heard by different organizations on campus,” Sweren said. “I also want to help with policy impact [and] vote on budgets and resolutions for my class.”
Both junior Angel Pandey, School of Business senator, and sophomore Jagrit Dhingra, Class of 2028 senator, were reviewed for the Appropriations Committee. The council then began an executive session limited to only members of the council. All candidates were confirmed.
The council then broke off into small groups to discuss the initiatives that they have been working on in an exercise called the initiative incubator.
Sophomore Abe Marron and first-year student Ari Medvinsky, senators-at-large, are working together through the Social Justice and Sustainability Committee to draft two pieces of legislation regarding artificial intelligence usage on campus. The first will form an ad-hoc committee, which is a temporary group for a specific issue. This committee will take information gathered from semesterly town halls hosted by SGC regarding AI as a whole on campus.
“A lot of students feel quite unrepresented in how they feel about AI. … [This would] give students a public and accessible mode through SGC to voice those opinions,” Marron said. “It’s such a source of controversy right now that so many [students] are passionate about.”
Medvinsky said the second piece of legislation would be a recommendation, which is a temporary bill used to encourage action outside of SGC. The recommendation would be in response to information in meetings with President La Jerne Cornish about changing current AI regulations.
Sophomore Ash Beall and sophomore Ty Sayahi, senators-at-large, are looking into a recommendation for IC to have more explicit guidelines to how students can gain access to accommodations. Beall said the current accommodations Student Accessibility Services can provide include dining and housing, but they must be accompanied by documented disability forms.
“It’s just really hard for a lot of people to get accommodations on campus because it’s expensive to get those recommendations from doctors and it’s difficult to get into specialists,” Beall said. “It takes a lot of time, so if you don’t have this perfect written up documentation in time, you just don’t get [accommodations].”
Junior Emmi Chen, varsity athlete senator, is working on a unity mixer for athletics. Chen said her goal is to facilitate connection within the different teams. Chen is conducting research on how this would happen and would hope for it to be an annual event.
During senator reports, first-year student Aditya Valecha said he has been working on introducing two new senate positions for Fall 2026. These two positions would be an LGBTQ senator and an accessibility senator. Valecha said he spoke to Student Accessibility Services, Center for LGBT Education, Outreach and Services, and student organizations Prism and the Disabled Students’ Alliance. Valecha said there are concerns surrounding how these new positions would be appointed, as they are based on personal identity.
“I think we’re going to keep this open to all … because at the end of the day [there are] allies to both of these communities,” Valecha said. “I think everyone should have a say in who gets on those positions.”
Both student–run clubs are asking that the senators elected would also serve as a member of their club’s executive board, to ensure that the purpose of the positions is being carried out. Valecha said if any group wants to be represented on SGC, students should come and present those ideas.
“[Students] can come to SGC, it’s very much open, they can come and voice their concerns,” Valecha said. “I feel really strongly that I want to present this bill, at the end of the day we will all be voting on it, if people feel that this should not be happening people can vote no.”
In its next meeting, the council will host Melanie Stein, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, to speak about academics and class registration.
The SGC is the sole representative body for the Ithaca College student community. The SGC meets from 7-9 p.m. every Monday in the Taughannock Falls room of the Campus Center. The SGC can be contacted at [email protected].
