51 organizations represented at first meeting of new body
The house of delegates met for the first time Monday night, electing Josh Snead, who filed an organizational challenge to enact the body, speaker of the house.
Karthik Chandrasekar, a first-year pre-pharmacy student, was elected deputy speaker, and fourth-year broadcast journalism student Jen Ashley was elected secretary of the body.
Fifty-one student organizations were represented at the meeting. Multiple others contacted Student Government’s Secretary of Organizational Outreach Brandon White saying they would be sending delegates to future meetings.
“When you think about how many students that represents, it’s an extraordinary amount of students’ opinions represented,” White said.
If the house maintains its size, it will be slightly larger than student senate, which has a maximum of 50 senators. It has 47 currently due to three vacant seats.
The types of organizations represented varied widely. Social sororities and fraternities sent delegates, as did pre-professional organizations and interest-based clubs.
Many delegates said they were excited about the potential the house has as a body to increase student and student organizational representation within SG.
“It can give all the organizations a voice they didn’t necessarily have before, which is great, because each organization is special, whether it has 50 members or 350 members,” Ashley said. “They all bring something unique to USC, and it’s past time for their voice to be heard on issues.”
When the body will meet again is unclear. Snead, as speaker, must set the date, time and frequency of meetings before any legislative action begins.
“There’s a lot of things that are still being formulated,” Snead said. “There are a lot of balls we’re juggling.”