Motion passes, new members join Senate

During a meeting Tuesday, Student Senate had many motions on the table including two that brought in new members to join those recently elected, leading to a nearly full Senate and fresh ideas for the new year.

Laura Adrian was appointed as College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences representative, while Jovan Paulzine was appointed as Greek representative, both by a unanimous voice vote.

All committee members are not official until approved by Senate, therefore a motion was passed appointing numerous students to Student Senate, Leadership Development and Programming Board, Facilities and Fees, Faculty Senate and Administration committees, all by a unanimous voice vote.

Nearly all of the winners of the spring elections were present as well, making for a crowded meeting room.

Winners included: Aaron Taylor and Melody Reimer, to the position of senator-at-large; Charles Guerin, Jordan Kocak and Matthew Northway as first year representatives and Joshua Breyer as the College of Business and Economics representative.

While not all of the newly elected representatives were reached in time for comment, several shared their motivations for joining Senate.

At-large senator Aaron Taylor is looking forward to building off of learning experiences he’s gained through his fraternity.

“[I want] to put my skills gained from Theta Chi to use and change things on campus,” Taylor said.

First year representative Matthew Northway said in an e-mail interview that he hopes to use his position to help freshmen voice their thoughts and opinions about campus.

“This new position will allow me the opportunity to help express [freshmen] needs and desires, so that the entire Senate can work towards making the college careers of new freshmen successful and enjoyable,” Northway said.

Pursuing majors in both economics and finance will allow Josh Breyer to represent the College of Business and Economics accurately while still working toward a variety of goals, Breyer said in an e-mail interview.

“Some of my goals include making it easier for student organizations to access and raise funds, implementing more opportunities for student involvement on a campus-wide scale, which is hard at a commuter campus such as River Falls, and actively seeking feedback from students to promote growth within UWRF that would benefit students above all else.”

Members new and old also had the chance to hear from guest speaker Sarah Egerstrom, director of First Year Experience, before voting on a motion to make a contribution of $12,000 to support the event.

“We would like to see this event rebuilt as a campus tradition,” Egerstrom said.

The motion to allocate funds to Family Day later passed by a unanimous voice vote.

Two other motions were introduced but will not be voted on until next week’s meeting.

Overall, it was promising to see the meeting room full, President Derek Brandt said.

“Hopefully soon we’ll have a full Senate for the first time in awhile,” Brandt said. “We look forward to working with everyone.”