As the members of the 2007-08 ASUO move into office, new senators say they plan to create ethical standards and work on a new system of budgeting.
Many new senators said their first order of business is creating a stricter standard of ethics and professionalism for the Senate. Sen. Neil Brown, who now serves in the Programs Finance Committee Senate Seat 3, was one of several new senators to say he would like to see ethics reform in the Senate right away.
“I think it’s important that we take that issue and face it head-on and do something about it early so we don’t get stuck in the same kind of problems we had this year,” Brown said.
Sen. Noor Rajabzadeh, who took her position in Senate Seat 15 on May 2 following the resignation of former Sen. Jacob Daniels, also said she would like to see more professionalism within the Senate.
Sen. Kate Jones, the new representative for EMU Board Senate Seat 4, said she will be working on the summer Senate and will be writing an ethical code for the Senate.
She said she saw the need for reform in part because election rules are very stringent, but once people take office, they are not held to the same standards.
“A lot of what happened this year was unprofessional,” Jones said. “I wanted to see that change. The Senate deserves to be treated with dignity.”
Lee Warnecke, Senate Seat 11, agreed. Warnecke, who served as a Senate intern during winter term, said he wants to help correct the problems he saw in the Senate.
Warnecke said senators should be held more accountable for their actions and said there should be a more professional tone to meetings.
“I don’t think Senate should be a circus like it was this year,” he said. “What’s important to me is to get in there and start doing the job.”
Jones said the idea to write an ethical code came from following the Senate this year and being disappointed with what she saw. She said her fellow “Campaign for Change” candidates have encouraged her to write the code.
Jones said she is also concerned with helping develop a long-term plan for managing the EMU and making it a more energy-efficient, green building.
“It’s such a central part of campus,” she said. “There are so many programs run out of it. If you can effect a positive change, you can affect a lot of the campus at once.”
Brown said he ran for office because he wants to “break the bubble that forms on the ASUO.”
He said the ASUO tends to become a “distant, cut-off” organization and senators do not communicate with students the way they should.
“I wanted the ASUO to be a part of student life students feel comfortable communicating with,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of changes that can be put in place.”
Brown said he ran for a PFC seat because it is a place where he can make a difference. He said he would like to see reform to the way the body handles big contracted services and departments, adding that before taking office, he met with the administration to discuss how to re-work the ASUO governing documents.
The ASUO budget process has not changed in 15 years and needs to be revitalized, Brown said.
“I’m confident we’ll be able to get some positive things done in the way the ASUO does business,” he said.
Sen. Kevin Parks, Senate Seat 17, is the sole new senator who did not run on the “Campaign for Change” slate. Parks said he is most concerned with creating stronger ties between the ASUO and the University’s law school.
“I just wanted to do something better to bridge the gap,” he said.
Parks said many people in the law school seem upset about the connection between law school groups and ASUO funding, but are not interested in making the change.
He said he would like to see the Senate work on overcoming the “stigma” surrounding accusations of a lack of diversity in the ASUO.
Parks also said he would like to see reform to the PFC process and to create better funding for groups’ programs. He suggested that reorganizing money that would otherwise go toward stipends would be one way of giving groups the money they need.
“I think that (stipends) shouldn’t necessarily come from the rest of the student body,” he said, adding that the law school group he is involved with – Land, Air, Water – is eligible for stipends but does not take any.
Parks said the money that goes to stipends should instead go to programming and be controlled by the entire group, not one individual.
“If groups want to participate and be active on campus, (the director) should be a volunteer position,” he said. “I certainly don’t think the ASUO is any different.”
Rajabzadeh said she ran for office because she wants to make her time at the University matter, “rather than just being another student who came here, got her degree, and went on.”
Her first meeting was a seven-hour marathon session in which the Senate approved eight over-realized proposals. Rajabzadeh said the lengthy meeting was less contentious than she had expected and made her excited to be in office.
Rajabzadeh said she will work together with students who bring concerns to her to make the University a better school.
“I’m Iranian and I’m a Muslim,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m the first Muslim-Iranian to be on Senate but I’m very excited to be able to have this opportunity to make a change. I hope that I can be a great asset.”
Contact the campus and federal politics reporter at [email protected]