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​Student Council approves new CIOs, expands Diversity Engagement Committee

Sarah Kenny appoints nine new vice chairs in diversity initiative

<p>Kenny stressed the importance of diversity as a top priority during her campaign.</p>

Kenny stressed the importance of diversity as a top priority during her campaign.

Student Council representatives considered numerous bills during their weekly Tuesday meeting, including one bill which approved three new CIOs and another which confirmed the appointments made by the Council’s new Executive Board members.

Student Council President and third-year College student Sarah Kenny also issued a presidential order to establish vice chairs for the Diversity Engagement Committee. Kenny stressed the importance of diversity as a top priority during her campaign, and this presidential order aims to significantly expand the Diversity Engagement Committee.

The representative body saw 10 bills in total, though four of those were tabled to be revisited in the future due to Student Council procedure.

The first bill to be voted on was SB17-18, which proposed three new CIOs to be approved — Virginia21, the Iranian Students Association and Counselor Education Student Organization.

Rouzbeh Rastgarkafshgarkolaei, an Engineering graduate student, attended the meeting to speak on behalf of the Iranian Students Association. He said the organization would mainly be for transfer students who have come to the University from Iran.

“Like any other cultural society or organization, we want to tell people about Iranian culture,” he said.

In addition to the goal of education on Iranian culture, he also mentioned the importance of supporting Iranian students in light of President Donald Trump’s recent travel ban on six predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran.

“There have been some hard times for Iranian students and we want to be supportive,” he said.

Ty Zirkle, Student Council vice president for organizations and second-year College student, recommended all the CIOs be approved, and SB17-18 passed with just one abstention and no votes against.

The Council also saw a set of three bills, SB17-19, SB17-20 and SB17-21, which approved Kenny, Alex Cintron, vice president for administration and second-year College student, and Zirkle’s appointments. Zirkle made three appointments, Cintron made five and Kenny made 13.

Kenny appointed a broad range of positions, including chairs of numerous committees such as Diversity Engagement and Legislative Affairs. Cintron’s appointments included new Outreach Committee co-chairs as well as a new director of University relations, while Zirkle’s appointments included the new co-chairs of the CIO Consultants Committee.

“The Student Council Representative Body approves with full confidence the above-listed appointments,” the three bills each read.

The representative body approved each of the appointments in the three bills, voting on all three as a block and passing them unanimously.

The two bills which were tabled at last week’s meeting, SB17-16 and SB17-17, were both voted on and passed with no votes against or abstentions.

The bills were tabled last week since they both proposed amendments to Student Council’s bylaws, and all such amendments must be considered for at least a week before a vote.

During the general body meeting, Kenny announced her presidential order to add numerous new vice chair positions to the Diversity Engagement Committee.

The order added nine new vice chairs to the committee, each responsible to a different facet of diversity, including diversity of race and ethnicity, religion, gender and ability.

According to the order’s text, each of the new vice chairs will be responsible for “engaging with the respective community of the University of Virginia student body” and “soliciting student opinion and collecting student experience data from members of their respective community.”

Kenny said she hopes to initiate a change not just to the Diversity Engagement Committee but to Student Council as a whole with the order.

“We’re completely restructuring how this organization looks at diversity,” she said. “The purpose of this is to think how each and every member can integrate the mission of diversity into all of their workload going forward.” 

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