The Allegheny Student Government filled several empty chairs and saw Cabinet members begin their first initiatives in a swift General Assembly held Tuesday, Sept. 12 in room 301/302 of the campus center. In around 24 minutes, ASG roughly doubled the size of the Senate, approved weekly finance requests, and discussed a number of other issues.
The meeting capped off an election season held months later than usual and with little fanfare. For the first time since at least 2017, first-year candidates did not give campaign speeches to their constituents, which Attorney General Will Lowthert, ’24, said was intentional.
“A good way of thinking about it is universalizing elections,” Lowthert said in an interview after the meeting. “I didn’t think first-year elections should be that vastly different than what occurs during any other class elections.”
Lowthert added that all candidates agreed to the electoral rules when signing up, and therefore knew the bounds of running a campaign.
“It was within their ability to campaign how they liked,” Lowthert said. “I do know that some of them did campaign, it just maybe wasn’t as robust as you saw over other years.”
Lowthert added that first-year students voted at a higher rate than historically seen, though he did not provide any specific numbers.
In total, eight senators were sworn in. For the Class of 2027, that was Ella DeRose, Liam Shields, and Chezka Therese Quinola. Aubrey Carion and Emma Conti-Windle were also elected to represent first-year students, but were not present at the meeting
DeRose and Carion were elected to serve as class president and vice president, respectively.
The Class of 2025 added Asaad Bell, Lexi Costanza, Ray Collabowalla, and Arina Otbliesk — Bell will serve as president and Costanza vice president.
Lindsey Robinson, ’24, was sworn in to fill the final seat for the senior class; she won her seat in the first round of elections, but was not present last week to be sworn in.
Cabinet Reports
Hunter Goerman, ’25, director of the treasury, announced a total of $4,619 in club finance requests for the week from nine student organizations. That funding was passed without any votes against.
In other financial news, Director of Communications and Press Jude Gotshall said finance forms would be permanently available soon.
“I’m still fighting with Engage,” Gotschall said, referring to the new home for club information launched this semester. “We’ve come up with a small solution where I will put all of the necessary links for finance on a document and then post that document.”
ASG has discontinued its old website — alleghenystudentgovernment.org — in favor of Engage. However, much of the information available on the old ASG website — including finance request forms — has not yet been ported to the new site, save for ASG’s Constitution and the minutes of the two most recent GAs.
Gotschall also announced that a new color scheme for ASG was now live and was available in the minutes of the meeting. The scheme uses green, blue and yellow as primary colors, with beige and dark green serving as accent colors.
As another part of ASG’s branding overhaul, Gotschall said they were working on a new logo for the organization over the next week.
The final reports came from ASG President Nicole Recio Bremer, ’25, and Vice President Sam Ault, ’26. Ault outlined the responsibilities for senators, including attending all GAs as well as completing three service hours and five representation hours per semester.
“A representation hour is time that you are spending in contact with members of your class deliberately in your position as a senator … getting feedback, input, ideas for programming,” Ault said.
In her report, Recio Bremer offered up an example: working at the upcoming Wingfest event hosted by Gator Activities Programming.
“GAP needs volunteers for Wingfest,” Recio Bremer said. “If you are a volunteer, that counts towards your rep hours.”
Recio Bremer also said that she had begun planning next spring’s major concert. The event is a collaboration between ASG and GAP, and typically takes place every other year during the annual Springfest celebration.
The last major concert was held in 2022, when student leadership invited rapper “A Boogie wit da Hoodie” to perform in Shafter Auditorium.
The ASG General Assembly will meet again on Tuesday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in CC301/302.
