Southall promises change for Student Senate

The resounding issue voiced at the Student Senate meeting was to look toward the future of the Student Senate, not to dwell on the issues of the past.

Senate welcomed President Nick Southall to the floor to express his opinions and resolutions to help the body move forward as a whole. One of his main points was for the senate members to not situate themselves on the past mistakes, but to ask themselves how they can better the future of the senate.

“I think a solution for Student Senate today is to get to work. We’ve moved past the controversy and I think we’ve become a stronger senate because of it,” Southall said.

Southall, along with other members of the executive board sat down to discuss his main goals to better senate culture and promote student outreach.

Southall proposed his main argument that senate should extend its reach to students. He has implemented the mandate that every senator go to several of the 400 student organizations on campus and deliver letters making it clear what Student Senate does and how they can help each individual student and group.

Another goal that Southall placed in front of senate is to become better at gathering student opinions.

“There are way too many meetings where I sit down and I am the only student in the room,” Southall said.

He said there is no way he can represent every student on campus, but he plans to have open meetings with students 48 hours in before high-level meetings. These sit-downs will allow any student to approach Southall with an issue they would like him to bring up in upcoming meetings with groups and individuals such as President Roderick McDavis or the Budget Planning Council.

To help better the student experience, Southall has proposed that there be loan education for freshman. This will allow them to know which kinds of loans they want to look for. For post-graduate life he also hopes to educate students on what loans will look like after college. Along with this, he also wants senate to implement steps to help students with graduation exams such as the GRE and LSAT.

Southall challenged senate to meet his goals.

“Why are you asking yourself who’s to blame? The question that we should be asking ourselves as student leaders on this campus is how can I better this issue?” Southall said.

Southall laid out the charge for senate to “make sure that this is the best student centered learning experience in America.”

Southall received the support of senate and Vice President of Student Affairs, Ryan Lombardi.

“I thought there were some good ideas presented out there and I hope that the body as a whole is able to take some of those and move forward,” Lombardi said. “There were some good nuggets [in the presentation]... and I think if they can adopt a few of those then it will improve outreach.”

Southall concluded his presentation, saying, “The solution to our problems is to work hard… I am going to be your president that works hard to achieve goals.”