Student Senate is a collection of Gustavus students elected by the Gustavus student body to represent the student body.
The Co-Presidents, Sam Panzer and Bobby Rassmussen, chair weekly Student Senate meetings and Cabinet meetings.
The Student Senate Cabinet is made up of Diversity Chair, Finance Chair, Health & Housing Chair, Public Relations Chair, Student & Academic Affairs Chair, Technology Chair, Ombudsperson, Controller, and Senate Speaker.
Student Senate Meetings are attended by the co-presidents, the Cabinet, the advisor, JoNes VanEcke, and student representatives from each graduating class, residence hall, along with off-campus representatives.
Student Senate funds the Gus Bus program and the Gustavian Weekly readership program, but its main duty is to allocate the student activity fee to campus organizations and clubs throughout the year. Student Senate also works dutifully to hear and address the concerns of Gustavus students, and is constantly trying to improve the Gustie experience in whatever ways students see fit.
Student Senate has addressed many issues among the student body, as well as, improved events and aspects of Gustavus to satisfy the needs and wants of the students.
This year the Take Your Professor to Lunch event has been reintroduced because of such positive feedback from last year’s event. Any student may attend, however, there are only 100 tickets available and may be reserved at the SAO desk.
The ticket is a voucher for you and a professor, administrator, or staff member to connect over lunch provided by the buffet, all sponsored by Student Senate.
On Monday, Gustavus students received an email from this year’s Public Relations Chair, Abbie Swenson, explaining the details of the event and how to snag a ticket.
“This is a perfect opportunity to talk to advisors about courses for next semester, J-term plans, internship ideas, or life in general in a relaxed setting.” Swenson said.
“The administration really respects when we weigh in on such things, but only if we can demonstrate it really is the will of the Student Body.”
—Sam Panzer
This is the second year Student Senate is sponsoring the event because of the success of last year and the feedback received from the student body.
“We had done the same thing last spring, and heard a ton of amazing things back from participants about how it allowed them to interact with professors and administrators in an entirely new way.” Co-President, Sam Panzer, said.
Including the success of Take Your Professor to Lunch, the Student Senate also successfully made Gustavus the first Fair Trade College in Minnesota by passing a Fair Trade resolution. In order to be recognized as a Fair Trade College, a resolution had to be passed; it applauded the work done by Fair Trade Gustavus, Dining Services and the Bookmark.
On October 2, 2015 a plan was approved via the Student Senate to gather the Student bodies’ input on recognizing Columbus’ day as a holiday. Even though the federal and state governments recognize the day as a holiday, a new movement, known as the Grassroots’ movement is pushing to change the holiday’s name to Indigenous People’s Day. The name change would reflect more of the genocide that took place and remedy the different stories of the so-called ‘hero’ Columbus is made out to be.
In order to represent the student bodies’ opinions and thoughts accurately the Student Senate needs to collect as much information from the students as possible before any official recommendations take place.
“The administration really respects when we weigh in on such things, but only if we can demonstrate it really is the will of the Student Body.” Panzer said.
The Student Senate works everyday to improve internal issues, ethical procedures and pass budgets in order to more money to utilized for organizations, clubs, events etc. In order to receive as many student ideas, feedback and suggestions, the Student Senate tables outside the cafeteria every Monday 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and holds ‘Community Comment’ every Monday at the beginning of their 7 p.m. meetings in the Board Room for open discussion.
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