After a year full of resignations and controversy, Undergraduate Student Government (USG) senators reflected on the Senate's accomplishments and the challenges the body faced.

Newly elected Senate President Chris Owens said the body's greatest achievement was its initiative to create additional free-speech zones on campus.

The Senate passed legislation in February suggesting the university amend the current policy AD51 on expressive activities to include eight additional locations.

The administration accepted several of the Senate's recommendations and gave USG several seats on a committee designed to review the policy.

East Halls Sen. Matt Ritsko, who spearheaded the initiative, said the project was successful because it was well researched and debated in the Senate's Operations Committee before coming to the Senate floor for a vote.

"It's a policy change through the administration, and being able to work with the administration is extremely important with USG," Ritsko said. "To that end, I think a lot of students don't realize how much these university policies do affect them, so having senators look into some of them is something we should do in the future."

Former USG President Ian Rosenberger said the legislation concerning policy AD51 was an example of the Senate doing what it is meant to do.

"I think that the bottom line is we're a lobbying body, and passing legislation for the sake of legislation is stupid. Why would you want to do that? That's the play on politics," Rosenberger said.

Many senators said the legislation recommending locations on campus for the administration to add blue-light emergency phones and the Senate-led initiative to draft a student bill of rights were successful as well.

Former Senate President Erin Ferris said the high number of resignations this year was the body's greatest challenge. The Senate had a record 20 resignations throughout the year.

"I think the fact that there were so many resignations this year made it hard to be a cohesive body, especially when the dynamics of Senate kept changing," Ferris said.

Owens, who was himself a mid-semester appointee, agreed that the high number of resignations affected the Senate's ability to work as a whole.

"Once we got all the new senators trained, they seemed to disappear," Owens said.

He said another challenge for the Senate was the controversy surrounding the three senators who attended former Town Sen. Brian Battaglia's Halloween party during which some members of the College Republicans dressed in costumes that some found offensive.

"The party that happened in October really set us back. There were a lot of feuds going back and forth," Owens said.

South Halls Sen. Ace Ekhtiarzadeh said the Senate would be more successful if the body continued working on the same projects each year.

"I think being able to transition better from one Congress to the next is important, so there is a continuation of goals. The things that matter the most to the students don't change a whole, whole lot," Ekhtiarzadeh said.

Ritsko said the Senate needs to improve its relationship with other branches so branch members can work together on projects instead of pursuing the same project individually.

"If we work together more so and communicate about our ideas, we could have a lot more manpower and voice in the matter," Ritsko said.

Owens said the Senate needs to open dialogue with other USG branches and with other organizations on campus.

"The old grudges that existed from years past were still lingering, so that kind of held USG back last year," he said.

Rosenberger said the Senate needs to set forth goals as a body and work together to accomplish those goals without letting parliamentary problems interfere.

"I'd like to see them train their senators not to get caught up in rhetoric and political atmosphere. It's okay to stop and say 'this is not how we want to do this,' " Rosenberger said.