At the spring semester kickoff meeting, Undergraduate Student Government swore in new senators and elected a new Academic Affairs chair.

Freshman Rachel Renou, an international business major, was elected to the chair position with the promise of effective leadership within USG and with the campus community.

“I believe in generating and following through with new initiatives,” Renou said in her speech before election. “I joined the It’s On Us committee, participated in study hours in the Learning Commons…and have had countless opportunities to shadow leaders (in USG).”

Renou hopes to review initiatives on the academic honesty policy and work with her chair members.

Renou also looks to the leadership in USG to shape how she will run the Academic Affairs position.

“I’ve seen Chair Woodburn, Speaker Johnson, Vice President Parker… All the things they’ve been working on and what they want for USG. Every time they brought it up, I got excited to have potential opportunities to help USG,” she said. “The (chair) position will be a way for me to push on that potential.”

While Renou sees potential in her new position in Academic Affairs, President Victor Senn and Vice President Danielle Parker look forward to a productive semester with USG while they finish their presidency.

“I want to continue to accomplish all the goals we had in our platform,” Senn said. “We thought (our goals) are important and we continue to think they’re important.”

Parker wants to leave their legacy with keeping USG visible and insuring that the student population knows that USG exists.

“We want to make sure that we are an organization that is essentially founded on serving students is doing what it’s purpose is: serving students,” she said. “Being present, being involved, making sure that students know that they have a voice.”

Parker said that USG will continue to be more approachable for the student population in the upcoming spring semester.

USG will be focusing on a variety of initatives for the spring semester.

Speaker Ebonee Johnson said that she looks forward to the productivity of the senate moving forward.

“We’re mainly just focused on productivity,” she said. “We did a lot of planning last semester and each committee has three or four initiatives that they’re very enthused about.”

Johnson said that the return rate to the senate was something she was proud of.

“Last semester was used for building blocks for the new senators and I’m really excited to (see them) preform,” she said.

Personally, Johnson was looking forward to seeing the new leaders that were going to step up in the senate and take responsibility after she retires her undergraduate career.