Media Credit: Krishna Rajpara | Photographer
Newly elected SBA President Nicole Karem said she will prioritize communication and adaptability during her term in the year ahead.
The Student Bar Association Senate swore in its president, executive vice president and incoming senators for the 2022-23 academic year in their final meeting of the year Tuesday.
Second-year law students Nicole Karem and Garret May were sworn in as president and executive vice president, respectively. Karem said she will prioritize communication and adaptability during her term to promote collaboration between the SBA’s legislative and executive branches.
“My biggest goal is to always be someone who you can ask questions to,” she said. “You can say, ‘I don’t know what I don’t know and I don’t know how to find it out,’ and I can say ‘Let me help you.’”
May presided over the senate for the first time in his new role, promising to be “impartial” and adhere to traditional parliamentary procedures to maintain the structure of senate meetings.
“Whether you’re doing things on executive or whether you’re coming here weekly as a senator, we are able to use this experience to learn how to care for each other despite differences on procedure,” May said.
Senators also voted to confirm Thompson Hangen, a second-year law student, as attorney general and OJ Singh, a second-year law student, as vice president of outreach for next year.
The senate also passed a resolution of appreciation for former Executive Vice President Yun-Da Tsai, a graduating third-year law student. SBA Sen. Pavan Patamalla, a third-year student who co-sponsored the resolution, said he wanted to call attention to the research and compilation of SBA materials Tsai performed “behind the scenes.”
“Regardless of the disagreements we may have had during my time in the senate, I know that he truly cares about this law school in an exceptional way,” he said. “And I think it’s important that we recognize and identify service or future sittings of the senate, should they have any need to call upon him because I know he will answer that call.”
The next SBA Senate meeting will take place next fall.
This article appeared in the April 14, 2022 issue of the Hatchet.
