Incumbent, challenger to face off in UWRF Student Senate election

As another semester at UW-River Falls comes to a close, so does another cycle of representatives in Student Senate. Elections for next year’s Student Senate, including president and vice president, are scheduled April 27-29.

The elections will take place online and will be open during the entire three-day duration for any UWRF students to vote.

Incumbent President Chris Morgan is running for re-election against Brady Murphy, who is the Student Senate’s director of external relations.

In the vice presidential race, Halan Tran, a member of the Student Senate’s Executive Board, will be running on the same ticket with Morgan. Tran will be up against Jessica Knapp, the inclusivity senator, who will be on the ballot without a running mate.

Each of the candidates also has a platform and new ideas that they would like to bring to Student Senate for the upcoming school year. Murphy said that he would really like to centralize and bring students together on campus to create more organization and raise awareness about what is going on around campus.

“There are some very serious issues and the one that I would like to touch on, I believe that UWRF as a campus is, it’s fractured, and I believe that there are a lot of ways we can go about correcting this fractured campus that we have,” Murphy said.

Morgan’s platform includes funding sustainability on campus, continuing to raise awareness about sexual assault, and seeking additional support for military veterans who attend UWRF.

“For next year we are going to continue on the sustainability track. So, this year we pretty much set the groundwork for sustainability, it’s carrying it out next year. So next year my main goal is for one of the first meetings back have it on the agenda for a green fee,” Morgan said.

All elected positions will be included on the ballot, while other positions that are appointed by the Student Senate president of Student Senate — such as chairs for certain committees — will not. A total of 11 positions will be on the ballot.

Student Senate as a whole will go through some changes next year as it does every year, however this is normal for UWRF. Director of Student Involvement Paul Shepherd, the staff advisor to Student Senate, said that the body has evolved over time and that this year’s members have had more of a focus on outreach toward the campus.

“Depending on who the leadership is within the organization, the priorities do shift a little bit,” Shepherd said. “You know this year with Chris Morgan as the president, there was a lot more focus on outreach and doing a lot more programming and events that are designed to raise the profile of different issues on campus that face students.”

The new senate will take office on Tuesday, May 3.