Student members of the University Senate are working to strengthen student voice on one of this university’s most important policy-making body, which for years has suffered from lackadaisical student involvement.

The senators have expanded the student caucus – a group devoted to helping new members learn the ropes of oft-complicated senate regulations – in hopes of initiating and pushing through more student-related legislation.

Not only will they meet regularly to train one another, but they are also working with graduate students and non-senate members to strengthen the student voice.

Student senators are focused on initiating student legislation because so many of the important issues affecting them, such as the riot policy and course evaluations, were approved last year, said Patrick Hughes, an undergraduate senator serving his second term, who was at the caucus’s first meeting of the semester Tuesday.

“Now we have to move to the point where we can propose the issues ourselves,” Hughes said.

Senate Executive Secretary and Director Mary Giles said she has not seen student senators this passionate about educating themselves on senate regulations since at least 2002. Former Senate Chair Adele Berlin welcomed last year’s suggestion for the creation of a caucus to increase student involvement.

The goals for the year are to implement the pilot online course evaluation program, move forward with plus-minus grading and continue working on textbook prices, said Hughes.

More than two dozen student senate and committee members attended Tuesday’s meeting. Though that gathering served as an introduction, future meetings will be used to train students on the senate bylaws, make sure they are clear on the agenda, become up-to-date on issues and discuss voting as a block.

“Last year, there was not a lot of communication and inspiration among senators to put their brains together,” said Ellie Sepehri, a two-term undergraduate senator who organized the hour-long workshop. “I thought we should start the year off with a more unified community.”

The caucus began last year but was ineffective because the group started too late to reach its goal, said junior government and politics major Andrew Friedson, who served as a student senator last year and now serves on the Senate human relations committee.

“We weren’t as organized or coordinated as we could have been,” said Friedson, now the Student Government Association director of governmental affairs. He added Tuesday: “It took us halfway through the year to come up with two or three things we wanted to work on as a community.”

At the same time, faculty and staff are also holding orientations for their new members prior to the semester’s first senate meeting two weeks from Friday. The hope among organizers is that briefing new senators now will result in increased coordination and thus a more productive year.

“There are definitely less of us than there are faculty, and if students can come together and make a bold statement, we can deliver a message when we all sit together and vote accordingly,” Sepehri said.

Avi Mayer, a second-term undergraduate senator who played an integral role in the formation of the caucus, said that ultimately the goal of all these orientations is very simple.

“We’re hoping to achieve things this year we weren’t able to do in the past,” he said Tuesday.

Contact reporter Brendan Lowe at lowedbk@gmail.com.