Rowan Student Government Association (SGA) held its first meeting of the semester on Sept. 15, 2025.

The meeting began with an open session from Rowan Public Safety Director Steven Ronaldo, where he emphasized the use of the RowanSafe app and went over its features. 

Ronaldo spoke about how students should feel good about having an app like RowanSafe, since Rowan is one of the few schools in the entire state that allows access to a service where students can report emergencies and request virtual walks home if they don’t feel safe out at night.

“You should feel actually pretty darn good about yourselves as a member of a Rowan community, because the only other school in New Jersey to have such a product is Princeton University,” said Ronaldo. 

Once the open session ended, the new executive board introduced themselves and gave their first round of executive announcements. 

Assistant Vice President of Student Advocacy and Community Belonging, Yuval Saar, announced that she is in the early planning stages of “Students Assembled,” which would give students easier access to updates on whatever’s happening at Rowan.

“We’ve been making progress on things that were in that resolution. If anyone knows what University Assembled is, it’s going to take a similar structure to that, where you’re able to receive updates on things going on within our university,”  said Saar. “So if anyone was a Senator last year, you might remember we had a resolution passed called Protect Our Voices, basically encouraging the university to take more actions for students’ rights to free speech and to feel protected on their own campuses,” said Saar. 

The SGA’s Chief Commissioner of Community Standards, Alexander Starick, then presented his Commission of Community Standards, consisting of four students, which will hold club meetings meant to help clubs that have been or are on the verge of being de-chartered. 

“We hold club de-charterment hearings, which are held to review a club’s standing upon reaching a critical point per SGA bylaws,” Starick said. “Then we also address grievances that are filed against the Student Government Association. So we usually follow the process to ensure that clubs are in accordance with their own and our government documents,” said Starick.

The students, who were voted on to be a part of the committee by slate and approved by SGA, include Elif Kilinc, a sophomore law and justice major, Alexandra Rudaya, a freshman public relations major, Moonique Williamson, a senior international studies major, and Jimmy Flocco, a sophomore geographic information science major. 

Chief Financial Officer Molly Fitzpatrick also presented her Student Financial Control Board to the Senate. Fitzpatrick spoke about how she wanted to diversify and bring more perspectives in choosing the board this year. 

“I put the committee together through an application process. I decided to select 15 members instead of 13, so that there could be more perspective when making the decisions. There were about 40 applicants, so the process for selecting was pretty difficult,” said Fitzpatrick. 

Fitzpatrick feels like she picked a great group to represent the board this year, and the senate seemed to agree, as the motion to finalize her control board was passed.

“I have one first-year student, and I have a majority of seniors, but I’m expecting it to be a really good year. I feel like everyone I chose had really well-thought-out responses, and they all seem like they think a little bit differently, which I think is important to have some debate and more controversial conversations,” said Fitzpatrick. 

The next senate meeting will take place on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.