On Sunday, the Senate convened for its last meeting of the semester to discuss the Midnight Buffet and other ongoing initiatives.

Senator At Large Lorenzo Finamore ’18 ran the meeting, as Executive Senator David Herbstritt ’17 and Student Union Vice President Dennis Hermida-Gonzalez ’17 were not present.

The Brandeis Virtual Reality Club approached the Senate for recognition and chartering. The Senate voted unanimously in favor of both recognition and chartering. Student representatives from the Brandeis Israeli Culture Club and from Students for Accuracy about Israeli and Palestinian Affairs also approached the Senate seeking to merge their clubs into the Judges for Israel. A student representative for SAIPA noted that his club wants to help host more pro-Israel events on campus and expand their outreach methods. The Senate voted unanimously in favor of de-recognizing SAIPA and changing the BICC constitution to reflect the name change.

Senator to the Off Campus Community Sam Krystal ’17 then discussed his ride-share program initiative, which would allow Brandeis community members to carpool to and from campus. Krystal noted that as of late, no one has applied for a Community Enhancement and Emergency Fund grant, which channels University funding toward beneficial programs and services for the community. He added that he wants to see if there’s a way to fund the program through the University to help get it off the ground.

The Senate then moved into the executive officer report, which was delivered by Adrianna Gleaton ’17, the Student Union Director of Programming. Gleaton announced to the Senate that Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 would be giving her State of the Union address at 8 p.m. on Monday night.

Next, committee chairs gave reports, the highlights of which included the total dollars earned from the Turkey Shuttle sales — $8,600 — Midnight Buffet updates and discussions on the most frequently used resources on campus, including communal spaces in dorms.

During the new business section, Class of 2018 Senator Paul Sindberg spoke about preparations for Midnight Buffet, which will take place on Wednesday. He noted that t-shirts for the event had been ordered, utensils and decorations were purchased and each senator would be in charge of a certain aspect of the event coordination, like t-shirt distribution and cleanup.

The Senate then voted to go briefly into executive session to vote on the Executive Senator for the spring semester. The senators voted to reelect David Herbstritt ’17, the current Executive Senator.

Once the executive session was over, the Senate moved on to senator reports. Rosenthal Quad Senator Will Jones ’18 noted that he received an email about the smell of marijuana permeating his quad, and he announced that he would spend his winter break figuring out how to reduce the smell of the recreational drug across campus. Sindberg told the Senate that he reset the PIN for voicemails in the Student Union office so that senators would be able to listen to messages from their constituents, which they had been unable to do before. The senators also discussed creating a new committee of senators to be trained as bystander trainers, resolving heating issues in Usen Castle and painting a mural in East Quad’s Airplane Lounge.

Class of 2018 Senator Skye Golann then announced that he would be taking a semester off from school, after which he will likely transfer to another college. He stated that he would be stepping down as chair of the Senate Dining Committee, adding that North Quad Senator Hannah Brown ’19 will likely take over. He ended by noting that former University President Frederick Lawrence is still paid by the University and still receives paid housing in Waltham, even though he has relocated to New Haven, Conn. to teach at Yale University. He added that the University pays its administrators — especially its president — more than Harvard University and other top-tier universities do theirs, and he argued that this money would be better spent toward scholarships for students of color.

—Abby Patkin