Wayne State’s Student Senate approved new senators and discussed both conference plans and allocation cuts at its meeting on Monday, Sept. 23.
Seven new senators and representatives were chosen Monday night, with Charlie Kimsey being elected as the third senator for the School of Arts and Humanities and Michelle Botha being appointed as the Multicultural Representative.
Parker Kesting, Mattie Kucera, Kyley Peterson and Bianca Branco were elected as freshman senators. Julya Metschke was appointed as an undecided senator. According to Student Body President Griffin Ryan, the senate now has all but one seat filled, the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences.
“I am super excited to work with the new senators and representatives that were elected and approved on Monday night,” Ryan said.
Despite being just under two months into the school year, Student Senate has already been busy.
“My first month or so of being president of the WSC Student Senate has gone really well,” Ryan said. “Thanks to my cabinet members and the all-hands-on deck effort given by every member. We have run an extremely successful Feminine Hygiene Initiative drive, planned out the majority of our NSCS conference and have plans in place to put on a campus-wide volleyball tournament with the goal of gathering donations for Haven House.”
The NSCS is the Nebraska State College System and connects the three state colleges in Nebraska. Its mission, according to its website, is to “serve our students, communities, and state by providing high quality, accessible educational opportunities.”
This year, Wayne State will be hosting senators from Peru and Chadron.
“The news I am most excited about is that Congressman Mike Flood will be speaking to Student Senate members at the NSCS conference on October 26,” Ryan said.
The recent Feminine Hygiene Initiative drive has also come and gone, carrying success there as well.
“… our Feminine Hygiene Initiative drive, which was chiefly run by the Campus Public Relations and Tech Committee chairs (Paige Nolan and Taylor Thorp), received 1,008 donated items and quite a few cash donations,” Ryan said. “Big shout out and thank you to all who donated.”
Ryan said things have gone well to start the year, but that’s not to say there haven’t been any challenges thus far.
“Honestly, the biggest hurdle continues to be the limitations of the Student Activities fees that make up the budget we allocate out to clubs and organizations across campus,” he said. “The estimate we received in the Spring was larger than the final estimate we received before finalizing allocations for the year.
“This meant that we had to make some tough choices and cut the initial funding of some of the larger clubs and organizations on campus. Although this is never a fun process, Luke Polacek, my vice president, and I made sure the process was fair, as I ensured that my own clubs and organizations outside of the Student Senate received budget cuts.”
The Student Senate meets every other Monday in room 131 in Connell Hall at 7 p.m. The meetings are open to all students. For more information, follow the Instagram page @wscstudentsenate or on Facebook as well as the campus website.