On Feb. 9, the Student Union Senate’s first meeting of spring semester was called into order by vice president Ria Escamilla-Gil ’27. The meeting was composed around granting clubs probationary status, budget concerns and chartering clubs.

The Senate first heard from the National Society of Black Women in Medicine, a club seeking probationary status at Brandeis University. The presentation was given by President Ciara Patterson ’27, Vice President Paris Weaver ’27 and Treasurer Gail Amankwah ’27. This national club has 34 chapters and was founded at Florida State University on Oct. 14th, 2017 by Amber Balkcom and Ashlei Phillips. Their mission is to increase retention of Black women pursuing broad careers in medicine. The club has already had campus engagement through a vision board workshop and are currently working on future events including a medical ethics panel and an upperclassman talk. The club promotes academic excellence and is voluntary. It was granted probationary status.

Next, the Senate heard the Student Union Budget Request for 2025-2026 done by Head Treasurer Xan Maddock-Mark ’25. They discussed adding a transportation fund for students to apply for and use to compensate for their travel to and from internships and jobs off campus. The Student Union Budget was approved.

Executive Senator Club Support Community Chair Daniel Shin ’27 discussed the process of de-chartering clubs. Students Talking about Relationships is an inactive club on campus, and after reaching out to those who used to be involved, it has been established they are no longer meeting. Therefore, the Senate approved the de-charter.

The Senate briefly reviewed the executive board report and finance report. Afterwards, they discussed the new system for committee chair updates for future meetings, which involves directly contacting Escamilia-Gil. Escamilia-Gil ended the meeting by requiring all committees to have their first meeting before Feb. 16th.