New Student Senate Executive Board to take reins later next month

The students of Ripon College have spoken. After ballot counting and two days of voting, the student body has selected next year's holders of the Student Senate positions of president, vice president, and secretary.

Junior Rusty Schultz is the new president-elect, junior Erin Bavery will take the position of vice president in the coming year, and sophomore Sara VanSteenbergen will take up office as the secretary of the Student Senate.

A run-off was held early this week for the positions of treasurer and special graduate trustee due to the fact that no candidate held a majority of the ballots cast. The candidates vying for these positions were first years Ashley Vanden Avond and Kyle Ruedinger for treasurer, and seniors Paul Williams, Theresa Kedinger and Nick Baker for special graduate trustee.

The new Student Senate Executive Board members will take over their respective chairs April 7.

Approximately 40% of the campus turned up to vote in the commons, and 405 ballots were cast.

"While this turnout is good, it is not great. These elections are critically important, and students should take the time to vote. If you want to have a say in what happens on this campus, you need to be active, and part of being active is by voting for your student leaders," says current Student Senate President Chris Schaefer.

The turnout was sufficient, however, to elect three of the five positions. "I'm very proud that the students of Ripon College have chosen me to be their voice on campus," says president-elect, Rusty Schultz, '11. "I'm proud that I've gained the respect of the students."

Before this impending term as president, Schultz has held the positions of treasurer and secretary, as well as being the senator for Scott Hall in his first year.

"Since I've been on senate I've had a track record of simplifying things," says Schultz, in reference to the budget hearing process and the availability of senate minutes on the myRipon Portal. "We [the senate] want to be a resource, a helping aid for them, so if anything I want the presidency to be somebody who people can lean on, I want to further that along and make it standard."

Schaefer also has good feelings about the new executive members. He has worked with them during his time as president and is familiar with what they plan to do.

"Expect this new executive board to accomplish a lot of great things and bring change to the Ripon College Student Senate," says Schaefer.

With the exception of the treasurer position, the new executive board members have all worked together on senate this past semester.

"I'm already familiar with these people, I know their working styles, so I guess there might be a little less lag time than you would see normally because we are kind of hitting the ground running," says Schultz.

"The role of the senate president depends on input and feedback from those around them. As the year ahead of me unfolds, I look forward to building upon those relationships I have already forged and hope to start plenty of new ones as well. I believe that as a group of students, faculty, staff and administration, here at Ripon College we are More. Together.