On Monday evening, Binghamton University’s Student Congress met for its second meeting of the year to discuss current updates, elect a vice speaker and welcome BU President Harvey Stenger.

Stenger came to the meeting in Old University Union to answer three previously submitted questions from Student Congress members and take any further questions from attendees. The questions ranged in topic from the price of healthy food in the dining halls, to the advancement of BU as a research university and to the search committee selection for the new dean of Harpur College.

He addressed the concern that salad bar items and other lower calorie, lower fat foods at resident dining halls can cost more than other items and said that he was working in coordination with BU dietitian Alexa Schmidt to compile a five- to six-day healthy meal budgeting plan to determine cost discrepancies.

Stenger’s second question pertained to the University’s efforts toward becoming a research institution and whether that would negatively affect the social sciences and benefit only science, technology, engineering and math fields. Stenger noted that the 130 faculty hires across each school over the past four years have been balanced, and research is relevant to each discipline.

“’Research university’ implies that the research faculty are those people only in science, but a research university really means all faculty are researchers and scholars,” Stenger said. “You want scholars, you want professors to be at the top of their game and the only way to do that is through research.”

The final issue Stenger addressed was the Student Association’s (SA) concern about not having a place on the search committee for the new dean of Harpur College. Adam Wilkes, vice president for academic affairs and a junior double-majoring in sociology and economics, asked Stenger why he couldn’t have acted as the student voice on the search committee as the voice of students in academic affairs. Stenger said that each organization on campus has the power to nominate, but not name, committee members.

“The responsibility of creating committee is job of head of committee, and they have to be diverse but not unmanageably large,” Stenger said. “The SA can nominate people for search committees, but can’t name, or else every organization will attempt to name, decisions will be done independently and there might not be that diversity.”

Following Stenger’s answers, Jermel McClure, Jr., the vice president for multicultural affairs and a junior majoring in political science, asked Stenger what efforts the University was making to encourage career counseling and opportunities for liberal arts majors following September’s career fair. Stenger encouraged Harpur College students to personally visit the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development or attend Harpur Edge events for more information and personalized attention.

After Stenger left, the Student Congress elected Emma Ross, an undeclared freshman, from six candidates to serve as vice speaker for speaker Sheeva Massoudi, a senior majoring in business administration.

To close, executive board members gave updates on current and future events. Student Congress meets every two weeks, and the next meeting will be Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. in the Old Union.