The Senate of College Councils elected next year’s president, vice president and financial director Thursday.

Senate elected Ryan Hirsch president, Kiefer Shenk vice president and Phillip Wiseman financial director. The Senate is a legislative student organization that represents students through the 20 college councils of the University. Each college council was allotted one vote to select its leaders.

Current Senate president Michael Morton said the executive positions require certain qualities to help interact with all the councils and committees in the organization.

“They really need to be good listeners,” Morton said. “They need to be compassionate and just never stop.” 

Hirsch, a neuroscience and pre-med junior, said as president she plans to increase student involvement for new project ideas on campus and to improve academic policies. Hirsch said she would also work to better inform the student body of Senate initiatives and projects. 

“Students deserve a seat at the table,” Hirsch said. “We must continue to grow and develop to better address student concerns and create policy to better the academic lives of students.”

Shenk, a marketing and physical culture and sports senior, said he would like to focus more on easing the transition to the University for transfer students. Shenk said he would implement team-building workshops to pinpoint priorities, find ways to better allocate current resources on campus and interact with students about difficult issues.

“Contentious issues should be dealt with in a town hall meeting setting, where students can really voice their opinion to impact change on this campus,” Shenk said.

Wiseman, a government senior, said he plans to create an online lender database for the councils and committees to have access to reliable and secure vendors for activities and events. He said he would also like to help financially support council initiatives through corporate sponsorship in a related field. 

“I want to take my experience to secure funding from local businesses, national corporations and even University departments to pool with the resources Senate currently holds so that Senate’s treasures grow just as our initiatives and programs do as well,” Wiseman said.

Published on Februarry 22, 2013 as "Student Senate officials elected".