I am an upcoming Student Government Association (SGA) special interest senator who attended the past Joint Senate meeting referenced in a recent News article to get an idea to how Senate meetings worked (“Fiore tries to revive SGA senate,” April 10). As a recent transfer student, I was involved in student government at my previous college and I am familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order (the parliamentary rules behind conducting meetings). I assumed this experience would be similar, but I was quickly informed amongst smirks and giggles of the disarray in the way SGA meetings are actually run.

President Joey Fiore is supposed to set the tone for the meetings and allow everyone’s voice to be heard. This was not what I saw. Not only is Fiore incapable of properly conducting a meeting, he actually announced to the Senate that, after nine months in office, he is still ignorant of Robert’s Rules.

To compound that, he pushed a parliamentarian into office who sat by while Fiore ignored rightful motions, moved the meeting forward without Senate’s approval and clearly favored particular people’s agendas. Senators announced how sick they were of his antics and he passed them off as people not interested in keeping the agenda moving forward. However, his complete disregard for the rules is what caused the uproar and majorly contributed to why the April 7 meeting continued running until 1:30 a.m.

By the end of the night, it was clear that the senators still present (as many had called it quits and gone home) were calling questions and passing motions merely to get the meeting done as soon as possible. There was hardly any debate of the issues and votes were cast for unanimous consent, because people were too tired and cranky and didn’t want to be the one to disagree and prolong the process.

There needs to be a complete overhaul of the leading body of the Senate. A president and parliamentarian need to be put in place who can follow the basic rules the Senate has agreed upon. Until then, the students’ voices will not be heard and the bickering and lack of progress of the Senate will continue.

– Anthony Bissell is a junior behavioral neuroscience major.