{"id":197083,"date":"2026-03-18T23:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197083\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T23:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:23:17","slug":"student-senate-elects-new-speaker-trinity-vodovoz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/197083\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Senate elects new Speaker, Trinity Vodovoz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Trinity Vodovoz stands in front of a fountain on UM’s campus. \/\/ Photo via Trinity Vodozoz.<\/p>\n

Following passionate speeches from two nominees, the University of Miami\u2019s Student Senate elected Trinity Vodovoz as Speaker for the 2026-2027 academic year during its weekly general body meeting on March 18 in the Storm Surge Room next to the food court.<\/p>\n

Vodovoz and Grady Knox ran for Speaker, each delivering a speech and answering questions from the Senate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Student Senate meets in the Storm Surge Room on March 18, 2026. \/\/ Photo credit: Emil Salgado Vazquez.<\/p>\n

Knox, representing Lakeside Village and chairing University Affairs, emphasized the Senate\u2019s impact on campus and noted her experience organizing several campus initiatives. Vodovoz, the current Junior Class Senator and Speaker Pro Tempore \u2014 the second-in-command of the Senate \u2014 was the highest-ranking member of the Senate running for Speaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She highlighted her long tenure in the Senate in different positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in the Senate for three years now,\u201d Vodovoz said. \u201cI\u2019ve really enjoyed serving the school and hope to serve you as Speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also recognized the lack of connection between the Senate and the Executive Branch.<\/p>\n

Vodovoz proposed a Student Government-wide retreat to build bridges between the Senate and Executive branches for more efficient, thorough legislation.<\/p>\n

She suggested inviting guest speakers from local government and business organizations and organizing more informal SG events.<\/p>\n

Knox discussed helping others improve legislation through editing and clarified his proposed Senate initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the process for pushing legislation through is limiting,\u201d Knox said. \u201cIf I were to win, my focus would be to improve this process and the way we implement legislation on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his earlier points, Knox spoke about the need for Senators to interact more with the Executive Branch, suggesting scheduling informal time before committee meetings or around GBMs to build relationships and improve legislation and processes.<\/p>\n

There was support for both nominees; Vodovoz\u2019s experience and Knox\u2019s strong leadership of the UA Committee were the main points raised during the discussion portion of the election process.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Vodovoz won the election and her term as Speaker will begin in the Fall 2026 semester.<\/p>\n

The Miami Hurricane requested the vote count, but was told it could not be disclosed<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to see what the Senate holds for the future,\u201d Vodovoz said after the meeting. \u201cIt feels so rewarding to win the election because I\u2019ve been in the Senate since my freshman year, and this will be a great way to celebrate my senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trinity Vodovoz stands in front of a fountain on UM’s campus. \/\/ Photo via Trinity Vodozoz. Following passionate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-197083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}