University of Kansas Student Body President Stephonn Alcorn (left), a senior from Gardner; Vice President Gabby Naylor, a senior from Providence, R.I.; and Student Senate director of diversity and inclusion Abdoulie Njai, speak about Student Senate's diversity efforts on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, at the Kansas Union.

A year ago, KU’s Student Senate was embroiled in an impeachment attempt that threatened to kick out the 2015-16 executive officers, whom some accused of failing to do enough to support black and other marginalized students.

Those officers ultimately kept their jobs, and took some steps to increase diversity and inclusion in the Senate before their terms were up. The new Student Body President and Vice President, elected in April, made the issue one of the most important in their campaign platform.

On Wednesday, 2016-17 Student Body President Stephonn Alcorn, a senior from Gardner; Vice President Gabby Naylor, a senior from Providence, R.I.; and Senate director of diversity and inclusion Abdoulie Njai, a senior from Wichita, held a meeting to outline some of their new and working diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Overall, Alcorn said, Senate wants programming “to really make sure everyone has the same opportunity to be successful.” Here’s a rundown:

Summer Venture in Business: Alcorn described this as a pre-college summer “pipeline” program for minorities. High school students will stay on campus and participate in sessions to familiarize them with the college experience and business academic offerings. It’s set for June 4-6, and scholarships will pay the way for participants. The business venture is a pilot program hoped to soon expand to other schools, Alcorn said.

Equitable Student Elections Fund: This KU Endowment fund collects private donations to help students pay for campaigns to run for Senate seats. There’s a clause in the fund that states it only exists as long as Senate’s election spending cap stays at $1,000. (I wrote more about this back in September.)

Multicultural Board of Advisors: Chaired by Njai, this body advises the president and vice president on issues affecting the multicultural community and related Senate or KU policies. Members come from a variety of multicultural groups.

Religious minorities ad hoc committee: The group’s goal is to create a survey to see whether campus is accommodating students’ religious observations. (I also previously wrote about this.)

Gender in admissions information: Senate is working with Enrollment Management and IT to provide more options for gender identity in students’ KU portals, envisioned to help collect more information on gender identity, sexual orientation and preferred names.

Other efforts in progress include a women’s leadership seminar, peer mentorship program for first-generation college students, increasing access to mental health services and a multicultural student leader retreat.

Several students attending Wednesday’s presentation commended Senate leaders for their efforts, but not everyone thinks Senate will be able to do enough. Also in attendance were leaders of the Multicultural Student Government student organization — including some who pushed to oust the Student Senate leaders last year — who are continuing to seek avenues to become their own separate student government.

In other matters, here are two KU items of note I spotted today in online news:

• Jayhawk with Supreme Court potential: USA Today included KU alumnus David Stras in a roundup of 21 possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees by President-elect Donald Trump. Stras, 42, graduated from the KU School of Law, is now an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court and previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to USA Today. His name was first reported as a potential nominee in May.

• Instagram hot spot: KU, once again, is the most-Instagrammed place in Kansas, based on geo-tagging, USA Today reports. KU’s famous Allen Fieldhouse is No. 4 on the list. (In case you were wondering, No. 2 is Kansas State University, No. 3 is Children’s Mercy Park, home of Sporting KC, and No. 5 is the Kansas Speedway.)

*
• I’m the Journal-World’s KU and higher ed reporter. See all the newspaper’s KU coverage here. Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.