Kicking off their second Congress of the semester, the present members of Bucknell Student Government reflected on the successes of their past week. Most notably, they celebrated some of the Congress members participation in this year’s Polar Plunge, a feat which took significant bravery. 

With all of the open committee seats overseen by BSG filled to the satisfaction of the assembled body, Congress quickly moved to other topics. A large majority of members expressed preference for holding Congress in the Forum, located on the second floor of the ELC, so students can expect these weekly assemblies to continue taking place there unless otherwise announced. 

The executive staff reviewed their long-term goals and the progress they’ve made in the past week. Two of the larger issues were met with encouragement from Congress as a whole: Amira Faden ’26, VP of Operations, continues the quest to include laundry in tuition to cover the associated cost by financial aid, while VP of Administration Eliza Morris’26 advocates for the job security of RAs, who are not practically covered by university policies such as medical amnesty. 

BSG’s Public Relations Board plans on posting Black-owned Bucknell student businesses on their Instagram account in recognition of Black History Month and hopes students keep an eye out to support these members of our community. 

Each class designated within the Congress gave a brief report on their year-specific goals. The Class of 2027 congress members work on planning a class-wide meet-n-greet to promote unity amongst the class as a larger group. Additionally, they’ve got several other plans to open up the accessibility of BSG in progress. 

Members of Congress from the Class of 2026 focus on getting the information and decisions from the Forum out and accessible to Bucknell students and faculty in an effort to be as transparent and welcoming as possible. The Class of 2025 currently and actively searches for their commencement speaker. When they aren’t busy researching that, they’re on the lookout for one last senator to join their ranks; so if any student is interested, reach out to any member of BSG to learn more. 

Last but not least, the Class of 2024 celebrated the acquisition of their own commencement speaker, Nadia Sasso ’11, who will be speaking on May 12th, 2024. These congress members remaining tasks consist of finalizing the plan(s) for Senior Sunset and Senior Night. 

Next week’s BSG meeting will be held in the Forum on February 11th. Teresa Mckinney, Interim Associate Vice President and Dean of Students, will be speaking.