UT Student Government began accepting applications on Sept. 25 for a new fellowship designed to get first-year students involved in the organization.

The program replaces the role of Longhorn Legislative Aides, one of the 10 executive agencies dissolved this semester. It was composed of 21 first-year mentees who assisted SG leaders in writing legislation and volunteered in the community. Now, only 12 mentees will be paired with one mentor from the Executive and Assembly Board, according to the bill laying out the program. 

The new fellowship is open to freshman and first-year transfer students. Before the creation of this program, first-year students could only get involved in SG by either being elected as one of the two first-year representatives or by applying to be on the legislative staff. These options limited these students to the legislative branch, but this fellowship allows them to participate within the executive branch, according to the bill. 

Jeremiah Clarke, an author of the bill, said he was selected to be part of Longhorn Legislative Aides last year, which was set up as an internship within SG. At the time, he said each mentee was assigned three mentors: an alumnus, an assembly board member and an executive board member. However, he said each mentor had two to three mentees, causing some issues.

“There weren’t a lot of checks and balances with mentors being held accountable to their mentees,” said Clarke, a Plan II and international relations and global studies sophomore. “There were some mentors who would ask (mentees) during the election cycle to help with their campaigns, and that was the only time they reached out to them the entire year.” 

Emma Corbell, a former Longhorn Legislative Aide, said she felt the agency could have built a stronger community among members. She hopes this program will be a welcoming space for students to present their ideas, she said. 

“There were a few people in (Longhorn Legislative Aides) that I did get close to … but I didn’t think it was a community … that was as strong as it could have been,” Corbell said. “I thought that we would be doing more volunteering and be more involved with SG, but that didn’t necessarily happen as I imagined it would.” 

Clarke said he renamed the program to a fellowship because, while he wanted to replicate the internship and mentorship aspects of the original agency, he wanted to make the new program more efficient and engaging. With his mentee, he said he hopes to encourage them to serve in the Austin community through local nonprofit organizations. 

“A big thing for me was civic engagement,” Clarke said. “How can we get first-year students civically engaged on their campus?” 

Sienna Rossmiller, associate director of internal events for SG, will oversee the fellowship and its events. As the only freshman on the executive staff last year, she said her main goal with this program is to reduce the barriers of entry into SG for first-years. 

“I’m hoping that they can work on actual significant projects with their mentor … and be able to start some initiatives and self-write their own bills,” business sophomore Rossmiller said.