The Student Association Senate had its most productive meeting of the year Tuesday night, on what was also the body’s last meeting.

With only half of the senators present, the senate passed 17 out of 18 pieces of legislation with significant debate on only two of the bills.

Seven of the bills were resolutions honoring GW staff and faculty retirements, including those of Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald Lehman, Dean of Students and Associate Vice President of Student and Academic Support Services Linda Donnels, and University Police Chief Dolores Stafford.

The senate also passed a new set of bylaws, reduced from 88 to 33 pages; the “Executive Appointment Accountability Act,” requiring the president and EVP to make all external student appointments public; and a new set of senate rules.

The only failed bill would have created a “President Student Advisory Committee” to advise the University president on “different student issues” next year, said Sen. Jamie Baker, CPS-G, chair of the Rules Committee.

Sen. Shwetha Shekar, CCAS-G, questioned the need to create a new committee to lobby the president on behalf of the student body, which the president and EVP already do.

“Why do we need another group of people doing pretty much the same thing?” Shekar asked.

The last bill the senate passed was the “Instant Runoff Voting Act,” which will be put to the student body for a vote in the 2011 general election. If approved, it would eliminate runoff elections by having voters rank candidates according to preference. If no candidate attains the 40 percent of the vote required to win, software would eliminate the candidate in last place and redistribute the votes of those who picked that candidate as their first preference.