In the summer of 2005, the Russell House agreed to allow Student Government, in the tradition of Omicron Delta Kappa and Golden Key, to finance the construction of a permanent Senate Chambers. Preceding the creation of these chambers, the Senate had met consistently in the Russell House Theater.

Feeling that a flat-floored room equipped with desks would be better-suiting to “free and full” debate, Student Body Vice President Ryan Holt pursued the creation of the chambers, and with the support of Student Body President Justin Williams and Student Body Treasurer Tommy Preston, procured the necessary capital funds from the Department of Student Life to build the facility.

During a meeting with Holt and Preston in the summer of 2005, Director of Student Life Jerry Brewer suggest that the officers pursue the acquisition of the presiding officer’s desks that had been left behind in the Carolina Plaza Hotel (during renovation of the State Capitol in the 1990’s, the General Assembly met in the ballrooms of the hotel). With an okay from the university administration, Holt and Preston joined Russell House Director Carmela Carr and carpenter Alan Kinder at the Plaza and determined that although the desks were far too large to place in the Student Senate Chambers, they could be dismantled and reassembled in a smaller form.

And so, barely by its deadline for the first meeting of its new session of August 24, the Chambers opened with a newly-finished presiding officer’s desk. The set of rooms (formally referred to as RH322 and RH326) were formally dedicated a week later on August 31, 2005.

Since the dedication, the room has undergone a series of changes. Pictures of the University campus have been hung as well as the University Seal and Motto. The room has also seen the addition of furniture and a fresh coat of paint on the walls.

The Senate can be seen convened in its Chambers on Wednesdays at 5:00 p.m.