Green Light lights up Student Senate elections

Student Senate elections finished Tuesday, April 4, after a turbulent election cycle, resulting in a majority win by the Green Light ticket. The new executives are Green Light’s Landen Lama as president, Nicole Schneider as vice president and Zachary Woods as treasurer. Going into the 2017-2018 school year, Green Light will occupy 34 of Senate’s 39 seats. Two of these seats came from unopposed races.The opposing ticket, Voice, won five seats, only one of which was unopposed. This year 2,202, or 13 percent of undergraduate students on the Athens campus, voted in the Student Senate elections. This turnout was up 105 students from last year. President-elect Lama said he is looking forward to the future, and is already preparing for the work ahead.“I’m very glad with the voter turnout,” he said. “I hope that all students get actively involved, and that the new Senate can do that. I don’t quite know what our first move will be, but we’re setting up more meetings with the three other Senates.”Vice President-elect Schneider also said she is looking forward to the future. When asked what her first initiative would be, she joked that it was time to take a nap. “It’s exciting that we’re finally done — I say done, but the work has just begun,” she said. “I’m just excited to do the things that we’ve been telling students we’re going to do.”The Voice ticket won five seats: Off-Campus, Graduate College, Gladys W. & David H. Patton College of Education, Honors Tutorial College Senator and University College Senatorial. Voice presidential candidate Jordan Kelley expressed his congratulations to the opposition.“I’m really happy for the Green Light team and excited to see the work that they plan to do,” he said. “Obviously I’m disappointed. I think my team would have been great, but I do plan on being involved (in Senate) in some capacity if possible.”The new Senate will be inaugurated later this month.