Student Senate member allegedly stole information containing students’ Social Security numbers, personal addresses

Wednesday evening’s Student Senate meeting started with a shocking announcement: someone had stolen personal information from the Senate offices earlier that day. “Unfortunately, some students’ Social Security numbers and personal addresses were stolen,” Vice Commissioner of Governmental Affairs Will Klatt said. “We know that there were six minutes between when the information was dropped off and when someone came to check in the drawer that it was put, a secret location. So it was stolen.” Klatt said the students affected were people “outside of student government”. The person that Senate alleges to be the primary suspect, the person in the room with the drawer, has a history of stealing things from the Senate offices on the third floor of Baker University Center. That person was not named but is said to be a Senate member. Klatt said that if the information was placed back into the drawer by the next day at 5 p.m., no further investigation or police action would be taken. “Because of the seriousness of what was stolen, people’s personal information, we’re not playing around with this.” The meeting continued with a discussion on compensation for the Board of Elections. In the past, the six student members of the board were paid “$20 to $50 per board member”, according to Vice President for Student Affairs Ryan Lombardi. The board wasn’t compensated last year, according to Klatt. Senate agreed that this was too low and vocally agreed to spend upwards of $500 for member compensation. How that would be split up would be decided at a later date. Later on in the meeting, Senator-at-Large Jessica Lindner gave support to those who were arrested during the Board of Trustees meeting last week. She was met with applause. “It takes a lot of guts to stand up for students like that,” Lindner said. “It just proves the kind of people we are.”Women’s Affairs Commissioner Madison Koenig announced that the four new senator positions in the commission that were created in October have been filled. The new Women’s Affairs senators include: Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program member Alyssa Ensminger, Power Gamma and VOX member Sarah Felder, Margaret Boyd Scholars Program member Malié Orr and Office for Multicultural Student Access and Retention member Kim Reynolds.