By Shelby Peck | Staff Writer
Baylor Student Senate continues to pursue its goal of allocating more senate seats to members of underrepresented colleges this semester by rebranding their inclusivity project from “Restructuring” to “Revitalize.”
“There’s been efforts basically every year to pass some sort of legislation that will change senate structure in a way to increase representation and kind of increase the plurality of student voices in senate,” Houston senior Ruhi Thapar, diversity and inclusion chair of Student Senate, said.
According to a brief released by the Baylor Student Court last spring, the restructuring bill (SE 69-18) originally failed. However, it was later revisited by Internal Vice President Bethel Tesfai’s proposal that a student petition be used to once again propose the amendment.
“Our main goal is just to kind of connect students on campus to Student Government and Student Senate and increase inclusivity,” Thapar said. “One of those initiatives is Revitalize, which was previously restructuring.”
Thapar, who has served on Student Senate since her sophomore year, said the name change came in an effort to more properly reflect the mission of the Revitalize project.
“We don’t want to break down the structure,” Thapar said. “We acknowledge that what we have is very good.”
Thapar said the Diversity and Inclusion Committee aims to build from the work of previous years, respecting the efforts, research and intentions of past senators. They are combining previous ideas with the position of empathy, which Thapar called the “underlying foundation of the whole project.”
“We don’t want to alienate different views, whether in senate with senators or on campus,” Thapar said. “We want to work on finding common ground and we’re doing so through empathetic conversations and one-to-one conversations and really hearing people out.”
She said the Diversity and Inclusion Committee works internally with their senators and advisor, Tanner Vickers, to hear each senator’s opinion and eventually craft a piece of legislation for Revitalize with which every senator is satisfied.
Externally, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee has collaborated with the Senate Public Relations Committee to gather testimonials from students in underrepresented colleges and organizations, to hear their requests and different perspectives.
“The way our senate is currently structured is allocation of seats for your class — so you have freshman senators, you have sophomore senators … ,” Aurora, Colo., sophomore Lily Davis, public relations chair of Student Senate, said.
Since student senate seats are distributed by class, those elected are often political science or business majors, often leaving groups such as fine arts majors or engineering majors marginalized.
As a University Scholar major on the pre-medical track, Thapar said she would most likely not notice an issue in the music building because she doesn’t “exist in that space” and attend classes there regularly.
“If a senator comes in that has that background they’d be able to notice an issue to address through legislation. We don’t have that right now,” Thapar said. “We can’t replicate someone else’s lived experience.”
She also said because of the way student senate operates, it is essential various perspectives are present to introduce more representative bills. According to Thapar, the way senators speak about a bill, largely determines its success, which affects the student organizations receiving financial support or waiting for assistance such as campus improvements.
Thapar said similarly to previous semesters, there are some who are hesitant about Revitalize, whether from a place of concern about sustainability or the desire to represent students best. She said, however, she would like to find strength and validity in each viewpoint to “merge together through empathetic conversations.”
“The way in which Ruhi [Thapar] is leading is really positive and really exciting,” Davis said. “It’s more of a collaborative effort this year, and she’s going into it flexible and open-minded.”
Thapar said there have been senators who have told her they don’t support Revitalize, but the Diversity and Inclusion Committee has been able to engage them in open dialogue, find pieces of common ground and reach agreement on some aspect of changing senate to increase inclusivity.
Thapar said anyone who has concerns, ideas, questions or testimonials for the Revitalize project or any senate bill they felt student government has not yet pursued is welcome to email her at Ruhi_Thapar1@baylor.edu.
“We’re taking a flipped perspective, not an argument stance,” Thapar said. “I’m confident that even if you don’t agree with previous restructuring plans, we can find unity this semester and we can revitalize our student government.”
