With a new year comes a new student government. Student Senate elections will be held next Monday, Sept. 22, outside the Evelyn Young Family Dining Room from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Two pairs of students are seeking the Student Senate Presidential Office. Senior Dance Major Shawn Grygo and Senior Communication Studies Major Luke Garrison are running against Junior Management Major Ashley Melville and Junior Political Science Major Chad Allen. In addition, a variety of representative positions are open.

Current Co-Presidents Kimberly Braun, sophomore, and Lucas Neher, a junior environmental studies major, have not filed for presidential re-election. “As a sophomore, I feel I should take advantage of this time to explore other service and leadership opportunities at Gustavus,” Braun said.

Collaboratively, the four presidential candidates recognize that a dysfunctional Student Senate is not in the best interest of the student body. “We feel that Senate has been very static for a long time. We are looking for progression and movement,” said Melville.

Grygo and Garrison think that Senate “should be a group the students are proud of, and we want to return it to that,” said Garrison.

All four presidential candidates have lengthy resumés in leadership on Senate. Grygo has served as the Vice President of Administration and Parliamentarian. Garrison was the Director of Communication under the Edelbrock/Spain administration. Melville accepted the position of Vice President of Finance under Braun and Neher. Allen has served as the Senate’s Diversity Committee Chair and was also a candidate for the Senate presidency in the last election.

Melville and Allen have consciously made a decision to run a positive campaign.

“I have no intention of ever bad-mouthing our opponents or even saying that we can do a better job than they can. I think that all four of us are very qualified for this position. But I think that Chad and I can do a very good job,” Melville said.

But Grygo and Garrison have some concerns about their opponents’ ability to govern effectively. “It is little disappointing to look at our opponents’ record. Last year, Chad was appointed Chair of the Diversity Committee. He dropped that and said he didn’t have time for it. If you don’t have time to be the Diversity Chair, how do you have time to be president?” Garrison asked.

“I was over-involved, hyper-involved. I had a very heavy course-load and was very involved in a fraternity. I think [my resignation from Senate] was a good decision. If I hadn’t resigned at that point, I would have lost my interest in Senate and been burnt out. I can’t do something unless I can do it 100 percent, [and] I am ready to go 100 percent in Senate again,” Allen said.

The Financial Debacle

At the end of last semester, Student Senate faced problems in the annual budgeting process. As the student governing body, Senate is responsible for allocating money to student organizations.

This spring, however, that didn’t happen. In a tremendous oversight, Student Senate overestimated the amount of money it had to allocate to organizations. It was believed that Senate controlled the entire amount of student organization fees.

Ashley Melville, a current presidential candidate, was serving as the Vice President of Finance during the budgeting process.

“Yes, it was a train wreck. Yes, it didn’t go as planned,” Melville admits.

But Melville believes the process is flawed and hopes to make the process “fluid” if she is elected co-president.

“So many administrations have gone through word-of-mouth training. It just didn’t work this time. It just happened. If you need to point a finger at somebody, point it at me. I’ll take that blame. And I will take that blame wholeheartedly confident that everything is OK because I busted my [butt] all summer to make it better. So blame me, but find me an organization that hasn’t gotten what it needed,” Melville said.

Still, her opponents are concerned by this misstep. “Part of being president is asking questions. If you don’t know what you are doing, you need to ask questions. That is a big thing that I wish Ashley would have done [during the budgeting process],” Grygo said.

Under whatever administration is elected on Monday, yearly budgets will be discussed and allocated at the first Senate meeting.

A Constitutional Convention

Last fall, Student Senate decided to change the presidential term from a calendar year to an academic year. Tony Spain, former Co-President of Student Senate; believes that this helps Senate to function more effectively.

“We wanted a chance for the presidents-elect to have a semester to shadow the current presidents so we wouldn’t have inexperienced presidents leading Senate,” Spain said. Senate amended their Constitution so that new presidents would be elected in February, and would then follow the current presidents for the remainder of the academic year.

In January, concerns about the required qualifications of presidential candidates arose. Previously, first-years were not allowed to run for the Senate presidency, but with the change in presidential terms, some Senators thought that first-years should be allowed to run, as they would not be taking office until the beginning of their sophomore year. In the absence of many elected Senators due to January Interim courses, a combination of elected Senators and “proxy Senators” amended the Constitution.

This made it so that first-years are eligible to run for the highest office of the Student Senate. However, this amendment was made by suspending the rules of the Senate Constitution and against parliamentary procedure. The amendment’s validity was later contested.

In February’s presidential election,Sophomore Kimberly Braun was elected as the only first-year co-president in Senate’s history, with her running mate, Junior Political Science Major Lucas Neher.

After a heated election season, the amendment was taken to the Gustavus Judicial Board. Following debate, the Judicial Board ruled that Senate had to form a committee to examine the Constitution and correct any missteps in amending it in the past. Also, Senate was commanded to have a re-election this fall to elect new presidents, due to the errors in which the amendment occurred.

“The problem is that Student Senate is bound by its Constitution, and unfortunately, the Constitution that we should have been operating by said that a first-year could not be Co-President. I would have supported the ruling had they ruled to allow the co-presidents to finish their term, but they did not, and I understand where they came from and I respect that,” said Conor Bennett, senior political science major and former representative for Student Senate.

Co-President Lucas Neher has worked very hard on revising the Constitution. “It has gone very well so far, and I am very excited with its progress. There will be many exciting changes coming to Senate,” Neher said.

The Constitutional revisions will be discussed at the first full-Senate meeting this semester, on Monday the 29th at 7pm.