Last week, the 2014-2015 ASUO Senate passed its last motion. When the May 20 meeting was adjourned, senators hugged, took pictures together and called to each other to keep in touch. Later, the Emerald sat down with a few of the outgoing senators to ask them about their experiences this year as members of the legislative body.
Miles Sisk wore several hats during his third year of involvement in the ASUO. He held Senate Seat 6, was EMU Board chair and this year’s Senate vice president. Sisk is a junior majoring in political science. He ran an unsuccessful bid for ASUO president, so next year will be his first at the university not holding a position.
Do you think you’ll be involved in the ASUO at all next year?
Sisk: I applied for the EMU Board, through the EMU Board’s internal hiring process. The EMU Board is this weird committee where it’s kind of connected to the ASUO, but it’s also independent from the ASUO. I might try to work on a couple projects that I wanted to work on through other means that have to do with the ASUO, but that’s about it. You might see me at a Senate meeting or two.
Senate Seat 1 was vacated by Yelin Oh, a junior political science major. She was chair of the Programs Finance Committee (PFC), which oversees the budgets of over 200 student groups. This was her first year on Senate. Oh said that she felt somewhat intimidated by the process before she joined.
How do you think you got past the intimidation you felt going in?
Oh: I probably will never get 100 percent over it, like even to this day, I still get shocked by things that happen. But I think even with the people I really disagree with…they’re not disagreeing with me to harm other people or just to disagree with me. They have the same end goal. Everyone wants to do what’s best for the student body, they just have different ways of doing it.
Dylan Haupt was elected last year to Senate Seat 18, Mathematics, Physics and Architecture. Haupt’s seat is a two-year seat that he is vacating due to changing his math major to a minor. He is also majoring in economics and readily admits to being one of the quietest senators this year.
What do you think was the greatest thing Senate taught you?
Haupt: Maybe it’s not the most significant thing that I learned, but just getting this feeling, sitting in a room full of people that really want to be there, like all the senators that are there and doing this for a purpose. You get a sense that these people are going to do something later on in their life, something big, maybe not involving politics, but they’re all determined people, hardworking obviously. They’re gonna do something good.
The other departing senators are:
Rebecca Rhodes, Seat 10: Departments Finance Committee
Sammy Cohen, Seat 13: Literature, Family and Educational Studies
Katelyn Klosno, Seat 3: PFC
Quang Truong, Seat 4: EMU Board
Andrew Lubash, Seat 7: Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee
Ronnie Grenier-Hemphill, Seat 8: ACFC
Will Iversen, Seat 11: Business and Economics
Connor Lasken, Seat 14: Pre-Business and Allied Arts
Hao Tan, Seat 16: Life Sciences
Lizeth Marin, Seat 17: Law and Social Sciences
Aven-itza De Primavera, Seat 19: History and Journalism
Senators Abel Cerros, Quinn Haaga and Robin Lilley will keep their seats for next year. Senator Francisco Morales-O’Connor will serve as the ASUO external vice president.