Fourteen interim senators were sworn into the Student Government Association Tuesday, Jan. 29 during a student senate meeting in the Memorial Student Center. 

The 14 interim senators were approved by the SGA senate’s judiciary committee before the senate meeting, Parliamentarian Jo Tremmel, the leader of the judiciary committee, said. Senate adviser Michelle Barbour swore them in during the senate meeting.

All 14 new interim senators came from the SGA’s senate apprenticeship program, Tremmel said. The senate apprenticeship program allows first semester freshman who apply to it to train for a position in the senate during the fall semester, Tremmel said. 

“Basically, they as first semester freshman applied to the apprenticeship program, because in the governing documents, in the constitution and the bylaws, first semester freshman aren’t allowed to be full senators just because they don’t know a whole bunch about Marshall,” Tremmel said. “They enter the apprenticeship program to learn about the Marshall community and student government and how it works together.” 

Students within the senate apprenticeship program get set up with a sitting senator, attend senate meeting meetings, learn about the different committees, and then, as a final assignment, write a resolution to help improve campus, Tremmel said. She said the senate also added an extra step this year where the students’ mentors filled out an evaluation, with questions about how eager the now interim senators were to learn, how effective they were at communication and how engaged they were with student government. 

“We took that information, and we looked at their attendance at events, we looked at their completion of assignments, we looked at them attending different events and stuff like that,” Tremmel said. “And then today we had 14 of them, and we only have a 40-minute meeting, so we had less than three minutes [each] to interview them all. I had to read off their information, and then I gave them a minute to talk about themselves and then we had about a minute to vote on them.”

Tremmel said the senate judiciary committee thought all 14 apprentices would make good senators, so they were all voted in. Though the interim senators do not yet have the title of senator, they have been transitioned into the office, and therefore, have the full voting power of a senator, Tremmel said. She said she believes the newly inducted interim senators will be good for Marshall University. 

“They’re one of the most hardworking classes I’ve seen,” Tremmel said. “I feel like they’ll do really good things for the university. I mean, the apprenticeship program isn’t easy, and they all made it through it and have come out, and they’re going to really really help Marshall out in the end.” 

Jesten Richardson can be contacted at [email protected].