Tuesday, Jan. 30, the Senate of Student Assembly of the College of William and Mary met and discussed two bills, The Funding Spring Concert Act, sponsored by Tyson Liverman ’27, and The In Support of the New Beer Policy and In Thanks of the Athletics Department and Aramark Resolution, sponsored by Sen. Connor Cheadle J.D. ’25 and Sen. Connor O’Neill J.D. ’25.
Brendan Clark J.D. ’24, who previously served as a senator, was also listed as a sponsor of the resolution as “Sen. Emeritus” before being removed following a recommendation from SA Attorney General Owen Williams ’23 M.P.P. ’25.
The Senate also heard a finance report from Chair of the Finance Committee Sen. Matt Swenson ’26.
Two new Class of 2026 senators also took their oath of office, Sens. Laayba Tanoli ’26 and Meaghan Jain ’26. They filled the vacancies created by the departures of former Sens. Ashlynn Parker ’26 and Jiexi Lin ’26.
Special Business
Class of 2026 Senators
Tanoli and Jain took their oath of office, officially taking up their seats as Class of 2026 senators. Earlier this year, Parker and Lin resigned their seats, citing commitments outside of SA. Former Virginia Institute of Marine Science Sen. Quinn Girasek M.S. also resigned her seat. In contrast to the undergraduate vacancies, which Class President Zoe Wang ’26 filled, the Graduate Council will name Girasek’s successor.
Q4 Finance Report
Swenson presented a report on the finances of SA for the fourth quarter. During the presentation, Swenson highlighted that $151,571.08 was spent in this academic year, leaving $572,574.04 in the currently available SA Reserves, excluding encumbered funds.
Swenson also pointed out that the deadline for Registered Student Organizations to apply for Quarter 4 funding from the Organization Budget Allocation Committee is Friday, Feb. 16.
SA Vice President Taylor Fox ’24 commented on Senate spending for the rest of the year.
“With reserves being at the point that it is, you guys can slow down the amount that you are spending drastically, as you guys have hit your goal, quite well and on point,” Fox said.
New Business
The Senate discussed two new bills, The Funding Spring Concert Act, sponsored by Liverman. The bill aims to provide an additional $50,000 from SA Reserves to fund the Spring concert, on top of the currently appropriated $80,000 and Alma Mater Productions’ contribution of $70,000. If passed, the total funding for the Spring concert would amount to $200,000.
Last year, the Spring concert cost $192,014, with contributions from SA, AMP and the College.
The chamber also discussed The In Support of the New Beer Policy and In Thanks of the Athletics Department and Aramark Resolution, sponsored by Cheadle and O’Neil.
“The TLDR is that in other major collegiate sporting events, fans and whatnot can take beverages and beer and whatnot back to the stands,” Cheadle said. “And there’s also no separate ticket line to get tickets and go get beer which was just needlessly encumbersome for the whole game.”
The title of the bill was changed from the “We Want Beer” resolution to its current name. Various parts of the language of the bill have also been changed to reflect a more serious nature.
“NOW THEREFORE BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED, that the (of-age members) of the Student Assembly of William & Mary want beer,” the bill’s last resolved clause reads.
“NOW THEREFORE BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED, that the (of-age members) of the Student Assembly of William & Mary want beer.”
Williams, the cabinet’s chief constitution officer, laid out the process for reviewing the new proposed SA constitution. The Senate created the Constitutional Reform Committee through the passage of SR 331-01: The Student Assembly Constitutional Reform Resolution, sponsored by Chair of the Senate Justin Bailey ’24, Arts and Sciences graduate Sen. Morgan Brittain, former Sen. Eugene Lee ’23 and Swenson.
“Just to make things easier for everyone, we decided that we want to break up that Senate comprehensive review of the new document up into chunks,” Williams said. “So over the next three weeks, we’re going to be sort of putting it up on the agenda piece by piece.”
Executive Updates
SA President Sydney Thayer ’24 said while she did not have many updates given that it was still early in the semester, she said events on TribeLink now also are displayed on William and Mary Events. She also laid out a plan for cabinet office hours this semester.
“We are hoping to get started on more office hours, instead of having each like department do their office hours, we’re gonna do joint office hours,” Thayer said.
