The Allegheny Student Government swore in seven new senators at their first General Assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 5, bringing their total number of legislators to eight. It is the first step in refilling a 20-seat chamber largely emptied by promotions to the ASG Cabinet.
Of the 14 members of the Cabinet — including the president and vice president — seven are former senators, though ASG Attorney General Will Lowthert, ’24, said there are a number of reasons for the turnover.
“Allegheny College students do so much on campus and sometimes your interests get pulled different ways,” Lowthert said in an interview Saturday.
The only class with a full five senators is the Class of 2024, who will be represented by Arilyn Hicks, Sasha Holguin, Katie Wagner, Lyndsey Robinson, and Christopher Ratliff. Ratliff served in the Senate as a first-year and sophomore, but not as a junior.
“Senior stuff should be fun and seniors should be supported,” said Holguin, who will serve as the senior class president. “I’m just happy to help support my class, who got a pretty rough start, frankly.”
The only returning senator is Lorenzo Scarnati, ’26, who said he only realized his seniority as the only returning member of Senate when he sat down for the first GA.
“I just hope that my one year of experience can be used to help new members of Senate grow and develop their skills with student leadership and get a sense of how things operate here,” Scarnati said. “There’s a lot that I still don’t even know about the organization, about student government, which — I’m here to learn too and I guess I hope we can learn together.
Scarnati will serve as sophomore class president, and will be joined by Lorenzo Tovanche and Aidan McGrory in representing the Class of 2026.
ASG was set to open up another round of elections for representatives for the first-year and junior classes on Thursday, though as of 5 p.m. The Capus could not confirm the ballots were live.
Those elections are set to close in time for the first-year and junior classes to be represented in the next GA on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
ASG typically holds Senate elections at the end of the spring semester, but that did not happen last May.
“Because the transition from cabinets was a little later than it usually is, elections would have occurred during finals,” Lowthert said. “We kind of made the decision that people would be pulled in a multitude of different ways, so it was probably not the best to have elections during finals, so we moved them to the beginning of the fall semester.”
The task of filling Senate will likely continue after elections are over, and Lowthert encouraged any students interested in serving for their class to contact him.
“If you don’t file on time for the elections and there’s still open seats, contact the class’s president to indicate interest in Senate,” Lowthert said. “If there is still an open seat, they can start a discussion on how you could potentially fill that seat.”