The Student Government Association passed a bill to allow graduate students who are not on the SGA to serve on each of the body’s two graduate committees and filled the senate’s remaining undergraduate seat vacancies at a meeting Monday.

SGA Sen. Connor J. Toth (LAW), who sponsored the bill, said the Graduate Division Openness Act will permit non-SGA graduate students to attend meetings for the SGA committees and assemblies on Graduate Student Life and Graduate Education Policy, which he said will grow graduate student participation on the body. Toth said the legislation also calls for joint meetings between the two graduate committees monthly to “encourage collaboration” and increase graduate student advocacy in the SGA.

“The graduate division openness act, we’ve seen it multiple times before, it is to get non senator graduate students involved in what is happening at the Student Government Association,” Toth said.

Graduate student participation in the SGA has been historically low, with only four students officially on the ballot for positions in the 2024 SGA election, all of whom were incumbents. The SGA continued to fill SGA Senate seats at the start of the academic year, with four graduate senate seats remaining unfilled after Monday night’s meeting.

The SGA Senate also confirmed Julianna Chavez, Samhita Dulam and Justin Liu, filling the last remaining vacant undergraduate SGA Senate seats. Chavez, a sophomore at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, said she wants to implement easy access to hand sanitizer in all of GW’s dining halls and Narcan — a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses — at GW’s residential buildings. She said she wants to speak to the Board of Trustees about securing administrative support and funding for the additional resources.

“I believe GW students need and deserve access to primary illness prevention and critical life saving treatment, I believe in keeping GW alive and well,” Chavez said.

GW currently does not offer on-campus access to Narcan, but the medication is available for free to students at some D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Departments and for purchase at local pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS.

Dulam, a senior majoring in international affairs and economics, said she wants to use her platform as an SGA senator to increase the amount of green spaces on GW’s campus. She said her current role as an undergraduate sustainability research scholar has allowed her to connect with University officials like Interim Associate Vice President for Facilities Planning, Construction, and Management Adam Aaronson and conduct campus walk-throughs to see where the University can implement more landscaping.

“Within the senate, we’d be able to expand our outreach to work with students across schools to see what other areas on campus that we would like to create more green as well,” Dulam said.

Liu, a first-year at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, said he didn’t feel “represented” in the SGA because of the lack of first-year senators on the body. He said he wants to represent the class of 2028 in the SGA Senate by tackling issues that directly affect first-years like improving new student orientation and allowing incoming students to opt out of GW’s dining plan, which is required for all first-years. Liu will be the only first-year senator on the SGA this year.

“Being a freshman is so different than being in any other class, and although you have all been through the plight, it’s not the same as currently being in it,” Liu said.

The SGA Senate also confirmed five undergraduate and graduate students for at-large senate seats, which allow students to serve on the body without representing a specific school.

SGA senators voted to confirm Salem Bahoqiba and Anaswara Raghuthaman for two of the six available graduate-at-large senator seats, leaving four graduate senator seats still vacant. Bahoqiba, an international graduate student earning his master’s at the Elliott School of International Affairs, said the leadership skills he gained while working at his family’s business will help him advocate for other international students in the SGA. Raghuthaman, a graduate student studying computer science, said she wants to help graduate students find more employment opportunities for post-graduation by making GW’s career fairs “more inclusive” of graduate students.

The SGA hosts an annual career fair in the spring and added a Fall Expo for the first time this year in collaboration with the Center for Career Services, giving students an opportunity to speak with employers and learn about possible job opportunities.

“As a graduate student, we face a lot of challenges in navigating through the job searches,” Raghuthaman said.

The SGA Senate unanimously confirmed Oscar Gladysz, a sophomore studying finance and applied mathematics, to serve as legislator general in the executive branch and Elizabeth Musick to serve as the executive secretary of dining. Gladysz said his experience as CFO of the Stock and Portfolio Management Club at GW has taught him how to collaborate with other students which he will use in his position on the SGA to help manage legislative issues that arise in the SGA.

Musick said her position as a student on the dining student advisory panel — a group of students who work with GW dining to garner student input to create new GW dining initiatives — will help her expand the SGA’s connections with GW dining. She said she wants to implement guest meal swipes into the GW dining plan so students can bring their friends and family members and bring coffee shops like Buff and Brew to the Foggy Bottom campus.

“Together, we can create a dining environment that not only meets but exceeds expectations of our diverse student body,” Musick said.

SGA President Ethan Fitzgerald and Vice President Ethan Lynne held a moment of silence for approximately 45 seconds to honor the people killed both in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and in the war in Gaza.

“It’s important to not only remember the pain and loss of that day, but of the pain and loss many in our community have experienced in the year since,” Lynne said.

Fitzgerald said the SGA will hold monthly tabling sessions in Kogan Plaza starting Oct. 16th from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., where members of the SGA will be available for students to come share feedback about their campus experiences.

Lynne said he attended a tour of the GW Police Department headquarters along with other SGA senators and received a live demonstration of the department’s virtual training simulator led by GW Police Department Chief James Tate​​ last week.

“I look forward to both inviting chief Tate to the Senate to take questions soon,” Lynne said.

The next SGA senate meeting will be held Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. in the University Student Center Grand Ballroom.