Facing a relatively inexperienced Student Senate, Senate Speaker Joe Robbins offered words of encouragement and advice in his first State of the Senate address.

“I am here tonight to emphasize the importance of all of you, of senate, and the possibilities that lay ahead of us,” Robbins told senate members.

Although the senate Robbins presides over includes over a dozen appointments and several first-time senate members, Robbins said he did not consider the senate’s “inexperience” a disadvantage.

“Your limited time here will help to develop optimism and fresh ideas – something senate sorely needs,” he said.

These new ideas include opening new lines of communication with faculty, the Charleston community and students.

Student Senate has excelled in bettering its relationships with faculty and the city, he said.

However, he said, the senate faces a challenge with the last relationship because of the process of implementing a Rental Inspection Code and a Unified Development Code, as well as Project 21, under which several minors were recently arrested at local bars.

“The problems associated with Project 21have put added pressure on (the senate’s external relations) committee to not only deal with this problem, but also promote alternatives to barS and find other ways to entertain students,” he said.

Robbins also stressed that the senate needs to take a “proactive” role toward addressing the needs of students.

So far, Robbins said, the senate has succeeded in addressing needs of students.

Robbins gave a recent limit of $29.20 imposed on student fees as an example of this success.

“With placing a cap on student fees, we are trying to accomplish two goals: lower the amount of annual fee increases, and give students more say in where and how their dollars are being spent,” he said.

Robbins also urged the senate to “make a concerted and genuine effort” to improve the senate-sponsored RSO Council, geared toward all 150 recognized student organizations on campus.

“I ask that everyone give this new method of serving the students a serious try,” he said.

For much of his speech, Robbins spoke directly to senate members, reassuring them and commending them on their work so far.

Robbins said he could relate to the new senate members.

“Upon joining senate, I was like some of you: timid, afraid of sounding stupid, and lost – lost about parliamentary procedure, about who’s full of crap and who isn’t, and lost about what I can do,” he said. “I believe that those of you who feel like this have one advantage that I didn’t – a speaker who is aware of this, and cares.”

“You are here because you showed interest, but more importantly, because I saw potential in each and every one of you,” Robbins told senate members.

Robbins told the senate not to expect immediate results from the work that they do.

“Our goal here should be to plant trees that those after us will sit under,” he said.