New faces on student senate

A new year, a new beginning.

With new beginnings student senate elections have followed. The student senate is an organization on campus that serves as the students’ voice to the faculty and administration.

Elected annually, members of the student senate meet regularly to discuss and take action on issues for students at Ottawa University. The senate is made up of representatives from different aspects of campus life.

This year’s student senate is made up of Adam Henn, senior class representative, Jacob Loucks, junior class representative, Jeff Stamp, sophomore class representative, Michael Jones, freshman class representative, Luke Parnell, Brown Hall representative, Aaron Vaughn, Bennett Hall representative, Sydnee Krueger, Martin Hall representative, Kevin Tyner, off campus representative, and Bethany Cobbs and Josh Giambalvo, at large representatives.

Eric Wilson, student body president, Abby New, student body vice-president, and Sydnee Krueger, Martin Hall representative, offered some words about this year’s student senate.

New said interest in OU’s Student Senate was high.

“We had a great turnout this year of individuals wanting to get involved in OUSS,” she said. “We have a few returning senators, but many new faces. We are excited to teach them the ins and outs of senate and even more excited to hear their great ideas while representing the student body.”

Krueger is optimistic the group can accomplish many things.

“I would like to see a lot of teamwork in student senate,” Krueger said. “I think that we have a great staff this year, and I think we will make a great team.”

Wilson believes the senate will work well, even though some may cast doubt.

“We have heard that some of us are too young and inexperienced, but we all seem to have the passion and opinion needed to get things done,” he said.

Wilson knows there is work to be done.

“Our first rule of order is budgets,” he said, “We find it important to improve the budgets by allocating money equally to students while keeping people accountable for what they spend.”

Like most of the senators, Wilson is new to his job.

“I don’t feel like we have any huge obstacles so far,” Wilson said, “Though some of us are new, we are on the learning curve at the same time. We are all intelligent enough to pick up on what we need to do.”