Previously in Senate: Ferris Wheels and Faculty Senate

By Mikayla Boyd, Editor-in-Chief

The penultimate meeting of the United Student Association (USA) was gaveled in at 2:35 p.m. on March 27, 2026, and welcomed guest speaker Dr. Graham Stowe, who serves as chair of Faculty Senate, assistant professor in the English department and director of the Writing Center. 

Before Stowe was recognized, the senate started with general student concerns, which included the number and severity of potholes on campus. Members of the senate inquired as to what potholes are under the care of Canisius or the City of Buffalo and Advisor Jason Francey responded that Canisius has no responsibility for or ability to fix potholes on any street surrounding Canisius, only Canisius parking lots. Any potholes can be reported on Buffalo’s 311 Self Service Portal found on buffalony.gov. Students were similarly concerned about a lack of communication regarding the start of ongoing road construction on Jefferson Avenue surrounding the library and affecting walking patterns.

The senate then moved on to executive and cabinet reports. Advisor Jason Francey reported excitedly that there will be a Ferris wheel at this year’s GriffFest and the Petey Point Store this year will feature Oxford Pennant-produced French terry cotton crewnecks. Public Health Chair Riley reported that he is working on an event informing about consent in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and is communicating with Title IX Coordinator Petrina Hill-Cheatom for information. That event has since taken place on Thursday, April 9 in front of the library.

Finally, Stowe took the floor to address USA. Members of the senate asked questions regarding how faculty senate functions and their goals. Stowe explained that there are four committees: the faculty welfare committee, which advocates for things like compensation and benefits and helps write handbook, the educational policy committee that is responsible for curriculum, the budget committee which interacts with the vice president of finance and the governance committee who makes sure policies are followed and gets faculty opinion on matters and reports from each committee. Each committee also delivers reports, similar to USA. There are 13 members of the faculty senate who represent around 110 faculty members. 

Other members of the senate asked how Canisius will go about replacing retiring professors amid the current hiring freeze. Stowe responded that freeze is not the right word. He explained that the university does have job postings, but is focusing on hiring critical positions. Applications have to go to the president's office, and sometimes, requests are modified in observance of the freeze, for example requests for full tenure-track faculty may instead be granted as a visiting professor, which are one-year contracts. Finally, students shared feedback with Stowe that the honors core curriculum could be bolstered by adding an introduction to religion course and research opportunities with faculty could be advertised more to improve student-professor research positions. 

The final meeting of the year for the USA will be held on Friday, April 10 at 2:30 p.m. in Grupp, and is open to all students.