ASA Senate seats filled in fall elections
CALLIN NADDY
cnaddy18@ole.augie.edu
With elections concluded on Sept. 13, roles in the 2018-2019 ASA Senate have been filled.
Eleven new senators were voted into the student group, which takes the total number of officers to around 33 for the year, according to president Anna Stritecky.
Julie DeWitt and Avram Tynes fill the role of apartment/theme house senators. Hosea Kost was elected off-campus senator.
North side senators will be Mason Blue and Hank Freese, while Hatem Khalfaoui and Luca Amayo were voted in as international senators.
Freshmen Ellie Holmes, Josephine Kassube, Sheldon Jensen, and Zala Awity also took seats in the organization.
Awity is also the international freshman senator, a title introduced only this year.
“I’m excited to represent my class here at Augustana,” Kassube said. “As a freshman senator, I was elected to bring their voice and concerns to the senate.”
Voter turnout was reportedly higher than in the spring, when Stritecky, vice president Tyler Beck and the remaining senatorial seats were voted upon. Stritecky explained that this is a normal trend, citing the freshman class for the uptick in votes.
“Our fall elections were a great success,” Beck said. “We are ecstatic about the group of senators that the student body has elected to accomplish our goals this year.”
Because roughly half of the senate members are veterans of the body, Stritecky feels confident in the experience of this year’s senate but also wants to develop an environment centered on outside involvement. ASA is pushing for students and other organizations to attend meetings and sponsored events throughout the year.
Another main focus for Stritecky and Beck will be sustainability.
“With events, we have kind of been hitting hard on sustainability,” Stritecky said. “We want to do solar panels. We want to create an outdoor space that’s dedicated just to an outdoor classroom.”
ASA also works to improve student experiences by allocating funds to student organizations and coming up with initiatives based on the five committees: Housing/Dining, Co-curriculum, Curriculum, Administration and Planning and Personal Development.
“Not only are we filling the divots in the student experience, but we are also kind of creating those peaks,” Stritecky said. “It’s things that would make student experience better.”
ASA reportedly hit the ground running this year, with around ten year-long projects already beginning to take place.
“I think at the end of the year when Tyler and I and our cabinet and our senators can see all those projects come together, [it] is going to be awesome,” Stritecky said.
