Greek students occupy more than one-third of the seats on the ASUO Student Senate, despite making up less than 7 percent of the general student population, according to numbers provided by the Greek Life office and interviews with individual senators.

Seven of the senate’s 18 members belong to a fraternity or a sorority, senate Ombudsman Mike Sherman and Sen. Jesse Harding confirmed.
“We are part of the greater good of the University,” Sen. James George said.
A greek spokeswoman said that greek students are just doing their part for the University.
“The greek community is just as much a part of the University community as any other organization,” said Erin Muessle, vice president of community service for the Panhellenic Council.
While many students agreed that campus involvement is an admirable pursuit, the heavy involvement of greek students in the senate raised questions of fairness among some non-greek students.
“A lot of their decisions may not be fair to the other 93 percent of the student population (who aren’t in the greek system),” freshman Nick Maffe said.
But not everybody objects to the over-representation of greek students on senate.
“It does seem kind of odd that it’s unevenly balanced, but I wouldn’t say it’s unfair,” freshman Emily Scott said.
The greek senators cited various reasons for running for senate.
“I got involved through members of my fraternity,” Sen. Kevin Day said.
He added that while his fraternity encourages involvement in campus generally, no one pushed him to run for senate.
“It’s not something that my chapter stresses to do,” he said. Day and Harding are both members of Pi Kappa Alpha, which isn’t officially affiliated with the University.
Sen. Alicia Lindquist, a member of the Alpha Phi sorority, echoed that her decision to run for senate was an individual one.
“I thought it would be a good way to learn,” Lindquist said. “I like to push myself to do different things.”
George said that the skills he learned in his fraternity helped him seek a leadership position in student government.
“Personally, I just thought it was an extension of the skills I learned in my fraternity,” George said. “Working with the University as much as we do, we see the areas that we could help or work well with.”
While senate seats are open to any student who wishes to run, greek students said they hold certain advantages over non-greek students in any senate race: the extensive social network and leadership involvement inherent in greek life.
George said his fraternity brothers were instrumental to his election, and Day also received a helping hand in his campaign.
“(My fraternity) just helped me get the word out that I was running and that I’d be a good candidate for the position,” Sen. Kevin Day said.
Lindquist said that while her sorority sisters encouraged her, they didn’t actively help her gain election.
“They supported me but I wouldn’t say we really campaigned,” she said.
Scott thought the bottom line was that if non-greek students want better representation on the senate, they should stop complaining and run for office.
“If students don’t think that’s fair, they should work up the gumption to become a senator themselves,” she said.