Originally published October 29, 2010
Student Senate is keeping a positive outlook for the rest of the school year and is setting out to accomplish several goals.
Danielle McMillan, student relations chairwoman, said Student Senate is trying to connect more with the student body.
“With flyers, resolutions and getting more people to General Assembly meetings, we are making sure that Student Senate comes out of the dark shadow it has been in,” she said. “We want to make people realize we are a legit organization and make sure students feel comfortable coming to us.”
McMillan said she is putting together posters for each senator to hang up in their constituency. The posters will feature a profile of the student senator in the constituency and will provide residents with information to contact them.
“I want to do this in every constituency, especially in the dorms,” she said. “They should know the face of their Student Senate representative. I don’t think people realize that the people they voted for at the beginning of the year actually do stuff.”
City and Local Affairs Chairwoman Jamie Sievers said her committee’s main goal is to promote the current midterm elections. As a committee, they have distributed voter registration forms and posted flyers encouraging students to get to the polls.
“I am also looking into seeing if Bradley can be a polling place in the future,” Sievers said. “I don’t think anyone has requested that Bradley be a polling place and that is probably why it isn’t one. I think that would really help get students out to vote.”
Sievers also said she has been working hard to bring a grocery store to campus.
She has begun looking around and recently contacted ALDI and Trader Joe’s, but neither have expressed interest. She said she will continue to look for grocers to bring to Bradley.
In addition, Sievers said she would like to improve Bradley’s image in the community by involving more students in The Great American Cleanup.
“Through Keep Peoria Beautiful, there is a designated day where they hand out materials to pick up trash and clean the neighborhood,” she said. “It is a good way to get students involved.”
Chairman of Technology and Students Affairs Jeremy Daniel said there are several projects he is working on this school year. The first is to work with computing services to make adjustments and changes to MyBU, and make a new version that will be used by students next school year. Daniel said he is also trying to find a way to give students more storage space on computers.
“The university won’t fund something like a new server because it is expensive, but we are looking for something, a type of software, like Google Docs, where you can save things on one computer and access it elsewhere.”
Director of Student Activities and Student Senate Advisor Michelle Whited said she is encouraging student senators to pursue and find solutions with issues on campus they personally would like to change.
“I would really like to see senators start their own project,” she said. “As student senators, you have every right to have personal interests that you would like to get done.”
Daniel said his personal project is to address issues with registering for classes on Webster.
“I’ve had several problems with Webster,” he said. “If they want to screw me over then fine, they screw me over. But I don’t think that students should be penalized for system errors.”
