The Student Senate is currently working to increase transparency and visibility with the student body. Steps to expedite passing bills and finding new ways to reach constituencies are already in motion.
Senator Issa Romano passed a bill in September to add Americans with Disabilities Act buttons on doors in University Village to open them automatically. No one told her this was a problem, but she realized it and wanted to fix it. She wrote the bill and passed it faster than in previous years.
Previously, bills took months to be implemented. Members of the Senate attribute it to a lack of clear directions on how to work with the administration. Now, the Senate is creating a set of procedures that will incorporate changes to UM more effectively.
With the internal changes, Alexei Darling, Speaker of the Senate, hopes that each senator will be able to pass at least one bill per semester and represent their constituency better.
“Now, it’s more let’s create a system that gives people the structure that they need in order to build those things,” Darling said. “And I think a lot of the time, people in the Senate want to do those things, but there’s just been a difficulty with finding direction.”
With the elections for the 2025-2026 Student Senate complete, Darling hopes the new senators can already benefit from the efforts.
There is one main area the Senate is targeting with its newest bills.
“Career Services,” Darling said. “Having worked on it last year with administration and seeing what our employment numbers and internship landings were for students at the school, it wasn’t a great picture, especially for how good of an institution the University of Miami is.”
Expanding job opportunities for students and improving academic advising are not changes the Senate can do alone. Even if the administration is responsible for most of the work, Darling thinks the work they are doing is valuable.
“It’s a process that takes time, and sometimes you need some student voice and student input to kind of see how that gets shaped a little bit,” Darling said.
The Lakeside food pantry was empty on Sept. 4. To find a solution, Ate’sia Wallace attended the Student Senate’s open forum on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Now, the student senators are drafting a bill to help prevent food scarcity among students.
Cases of students reaching out like this are not as common as senators would like. To make changes that matter, senators need students to reach out.
Darling and other members of the Student Government blame the difficulty in connecting with students on a lack of transparency and visibility.
“We do a lot of work, and we try and make a big effort to do good things, but we don’t do a great job of advertising [their initiatives], so we’ve been trying to do a better job doing that,” Darling said.
Having more tabling events is one solution. Its most recent event in September, “Food for Thought,” was held to discuss improvements to housing. But most student engagement comes from Student Government’s weekly meetings.
“People are free and allowed to come,” Darling said. “We want our constituents to be more involved.”
Students are invited to talk to senators during Open Forum every Wednesday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Senate Room on the third floor of Shalala. If someone cannot attend, senators are working to connect representatives with their constituencies.
“I did have an idea for a bill where we would send out emails to our respective constituencies and the advisors or directors for our respective constituencies,” Elizer Rozado, first-generation student senator, said.
The Senate’s Public Relations Committee is working on Rozado’s proposal.
Another initiative has been Senate Takeovers. Students can get to know representatives from different constituencies by following them for a day and asking questions.
The Speaker for the Senate, Alexei Darling, and his Speaker Pro Tempore, Trinity Vodovoz, can be contacted at [email protected]. If students want to know more, they can look over their website and Instagram pages.
“I want to emphasize that the senators do a lot of work, and they want to hear from you guys,” Darling said. “Go talk to them. Go give them these ideas. Talk to them about your issues so they can work on them, because they want to improve student life for everyone.”