Senate appoints new chief justice

At its weekly meeting on Monday, Student Senate confirmed a new chief justice to fill the vacancy left by Carter Thiel, the former chief justice. 

Nathan Cronin, 24, Junior of Fort Pierre, South Dakota, acted as interim chief justice in previous senate meetings before being sworn in officially by Senate President Lily Umeta. Cronin previously served as an associate justice on the court. 

“I wanted the duties as the chief justice so that I could be more involved within the inner workings of the school and be able to work with the student government,” cronin said.

Cronin, who previously served as an associate justice on the constitutional court, will now work to advise the senate president and vice president on constitutional matters, run student body elections and attend all meetings of the student government. 

“I look forward most to being an impartial voice within the student government,” he said. “I try to base my decisions or advisory opinions based on the U.S. Constitution as well as our student government constitution/Bylaws.” 

In another matter, senate allocated $1,800 for Operation Christmas Child to send Christmas gifts to underprivileged children around the world. 

RLA and CSC Revive club will be sponsoring an event on Thursday to help pack the Christmas gifts for shipment.  

“We are hoping to pack about 200 boxes and hoping to have one hundred people come,” Tori Meschke, Senior of Broken Bow and CSC Revive, said. 

“It’s a great way to give back; we’ll be sending these boxes around the world to kids in need,” Meschke said. 

The items to be shipped were donated by people in the community as part of the larger Operation Christmas Child project by Samaritan’s Purse.  

In another allocation move, senate approved funding the CSC food pantry through next semester.

According to the Senate Activity Fee Board, the food pantry made 73 bags of food in September, 85 bags in October and prepared a similar amount for the month of November.

Those numbers were enough to persuade all present senators to approve the $4,000 funding request by the food pantry.

Senate may also be near increasing its membership as the chief justice reported receiving four petitions for senators.

Though, currently, there remains open positions for a Kent and liberal arts senator.

In other news: 

> The You@CSC website received funding from sources outside Student Senate after senate previously rejected a funding request for the site.

> Senate had $41,349.66 in unallocated funds 

> Senate had $30,000.00 in unallocated trip funds