At their last meeting of spring semester, the Undergraduate Student Government appointed new cabinet positions and voted for new committee chairs.

As the first presidential order of business, new President Aaron Shumaker appointed two senators to cabinet positions. Matt Clark will serve as chief of staff, and Josie Miller will serve as chief administrator.

Anthony Calabrese was selected as the new speaker of the senate. He was voted in over Kim Lovitt, outgoing secretary, whom was also nominated for the position of speaker.

The speaker of the senate presides over all general assembly meetings. USG uses a set of specific guidelines to run their meetings, called Robert’s Rules of Order.

Calabrese said he is already familiar with Robert’s Rules because he runs his fraternity’s meetings with the rules. Calabrese is president of Lambda Chi Alpha.

Calabrese said he will use the rules to run meetings efficiently, but not quickly. He said that some new senators might not understand what is happening if meetings are too fast-paced.

“The worst thing is when senators don’t understand what’s going on in their own meeting,” Calabrese said during his speech before he was voted into the position.

Calabrese said he will encourage new senators to spend time in the USG office because they will “learn through osmosis.”

The new student trustee is Raquel Colon, a familar face to senators because she is also the outgoing president of the Latino Student Union. Colon has attended several USG meetings this semester, lobbying for — and winning — the support of USG with a campaign to lower flags to half staff to honor Ohio soldiers who are killed in battle.

Five new senators were also sworn-in. Shaun Hayes and Claire Landis-Tyson will serve as off-campus senators. New at-large senators include TaKasha Smith, Jason Whitaker and former presidential candidate Niki Messmore.

All committee chair positions were filled at the meeting. Voting took place by secret ballot. Niki Messmore received a second term as chair of the Organization Liaison Committee.

The OLC represents student groups on campus. To learn about the needs of student groups, committee members attend those group meetings often.

Messmore said she thinks the committee was successful this year, but she will try to stay in closer contact with student leaders of campus groups. Messmore said she worked closely with the LSU with the flag-lowering campaign.

Messmore won the position of committee chair over Chelsea Howard, who worked with Messmore as a member of the committee this year.

Another chair position went to Sara Connelly, who was voted chair of the USG Academic Affairs Committee. This committee represents student opinion on all academic issues. This spring, Connelly was secretary for the committee and also served as representative for the College of Musical Arts. Connelly was chosen over fellow committee member, Abby Snyder, for the position of committee chair.

Nathan Wiedenhoft was sworn-in as chair of the Student Welfare Committee. Wiedenhoft was the only nominee, so he was accepted by acclamation into the position.

Also running unopposed was Matt Seckel, who was the only nominee for the chair of the Internal Affairs Committee. Seckel was also accepted by acclamation.

But some senators won’t have to wait until fall semester to begin their new duties. Six senators were given positions on summer government.

Summer senators include: Courtney Martin, Matt Seckel, Nathan Wiedenhoft, Shaun Hayes, Sara Connelly and Ben Mossing. All six nominees for summer government were accepted by acclamation.

All summer senators will have the power of the senate to write resolutions if an issue comes up when general assembly is not in session. Last month, Sen. Matt Clark proposed a resolution that would limit the power of summer senators. The resolution passed, and will force all absent senators to vote on issues from their homes. But until the vice president for student affairs, Ed Whipple, approves the resolution, it cannot take effect. Clark said that the change in summer government isn’t expected to happen until next year.