By James O’Brien, Staff Writer

On Sunday, Sept. 27, the Student Bar Association (SBA) released the results of this year’s elections. The new 1L Senators include Thomas Durham, Boebin Park, Tayla Fauntleroy, Meagan Kirby, and Stephanie Maldonado Perdomo.

The 2L senator is Kirsten Williams, the 3L senator is Alida Mooney, the AJD senator is Adriney Chepeian, and the masters senator is Emily Binder. The LLM senator election resulted in a tie between Nick Lansfeldt and Ludovica Brown, which requires a runoff election. Finally, the town liaison is Caitlin Kennedy, and the ABA representative is Jordan Van Cleave.

On Tuesday, September 29, the SBA held a virtual meeting, which began with President Heather Francis approving the prior meeting’s agenda and minutes and acknowledging that the SBA has now reached a full senate after a successful virtual election process.

Francis went on to give updates about the restructuring of student groups, and summaries of national voter registration week, the first ever virtual student organization fair, and the roles and expectations of all senators.

There were a number of key takeaways from the meeting:

• Restructuring of student groups is coming soon, and those who are in the process should expect information from the SBA in the coming weeks.
• There will be an email pushed out with a recording of the voter registration panel that was conducted, which will include bios of the those who spoke. The winners of the social media campaign have been identified and will be contacted by SBA Pres. Francis. If you have not yet registered to vote, please reach out to Francis and she will help you with that process.
• The Virtual Student Organization Fair was not as productive as hoped—with some groups seeing no students—but overall things went smoothly. A PDF will be emailed out with descriptions of the organizations for those who could not attend the fair but are still interested in getting involved.
• With the election of new senators, Francis touched on the role senators should be filling, the bylaws they should be aware of, and the importance of engaging in their selected committees.

After the President’s address, the other officers of the executive committee were given a chance to report any updates.

The VP of Student Activities, Rico Edwards, shared that the issues with the care package project for 1Ls are being worked out, and that there is a tentative plan for a Halloween party later this month.

Treasurer Mulhall stated that he is working on a schedule to meet with all student groups to discuss allocation of funds for the fall and spring semesters. Any group with immediate questions is urged to directly reach out to him.

Parliamentarian Weinard instructed new senators who need information about their roles and responsibilities to email her.

Finally, Secretary White reminded attendees that the SBA will not be meeting again until the week after fall break.

After the officers spoke, Francis introduced a guest speaker, Sarah Danly, who is a VLS alum working for the Royalton Planning Commission. Danly discussed an art project in South Royalton, which involves painting a new mural in the underpass on Stafford Street. The project has received a $5,000 grant from The Vermont Arts Council, and Danly wants to get the VLS community engaged in the process.

If a student wants to participate in the steering committee, they would be required to attend a few meetings at key decision points on the project and help develop the Request for Qualification (RFQ) for potential artists to complete the design. Involved students would also serve as a point of contact for the general VLS community to ask questions or provide comments regarding the project.

For more information on this project and how to get involved, check out the Facebook page dedicated to the project or directly email Sarah at sarahdanly@gmail.com .

Finally, the meeting wrapped up other administrative business. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) passed a motion to become an SBA-funded eligible student group again, and SBA appointed its new ABA representative. To conclude the meeting, the new senators were sworn in, with a few briefly introducing themselves to attendees.