Northwest Missouri State University - Tower Yearbook (Maryville, MO)

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STUDENT SENATE 27

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RIGHT: Bruce Spidel casts his vote in the spring Student Senate election. Ballot boxes were placed in dorms and the Union Building during election time FAR RIGHT Student Senate members look over the minutes from the November meeting The December meeting, held in Franken Hall, was one of several Senate meetings held in the residence halls. BELOW RIGHT: Suzanne Cruzen, Mis- sourian editor, talks to Student Senate officers Greg Hatten, vice president, Darrell Zellers, presi- dent, and Kerri Andersen, secre- tary. The student newspaper covered Senate meetings each month Through reorganization and resignations. . . Senate survives 26 STUDENT SENATE People support what they cre- ate was the philosophy that Student Senate followed as it made major changes in the governing and academic systems of NWMSU. One of the first things we did was reorganize our committee struc- ture, said Student Senate President Darrell Zellers. This not only made things smoother internally but also provided more student input. Thus the Student Affairs Com- mittee, Student Information Com- mittee and Academic Affairs Com- mittee were formed to carry out the business of Senate and tackle the problems and proposals which were on the minds of the student body. I think our biggest accomplish- ment this year was the revision of the Senate Constitution, said Zellers. This was something that was long overdue, and I was pleased that we were able to complete it. Also high on the Senate ' s agenda was the proposal to revamp the teacher evaluation system. We set up a task force to look into the method of how teachers were evaluated, said Zellers. Although it was not carried through last year, we felt it would be a major step in improving the academic standards of NWMSU ' . In the new constitution, IRC, Union Board and Harambee House were given voting privileges. Ac- cording to Secretary Kerri Andersen, this emphasized Senate ' s effort to strengthen communication between itself and the student body. As far as I ' m concerned, this was something which needed improv- ing, said Andersen. By adding these groups, the students had more of a voice in what went on. Although these improvements gave the Senate more exposure to the student body there still remained a concern for its image-the chief factor being vacancies created by numerous resignations throughout the year. Granted, there were more resignations this year than in the past, but they were inevitable and couldn ' t be avoided, said Zellers, so I personally didn ' t feel we maintained a low image. According to Zellers, Senate wanted to work with the different areas of campus rather than work against them. I think that Senate did a good job in maintaining relations between students, faculty and the administration, he said.

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Student Union Board Bottling the suitcasers Whether it was for entertainment, home-cooked meals or a boyfriend or girlfriend, the weekend suitcasers formed a vast armada heading north and south on highway 71. Student Union Board, confronted with this problem, made a major effort to reduce the parting masses. We found that the only thing that consistently kept students on cam- pus was music, said SUB member Jim Clark. Because our funds didn ' t allow us to bring big name bands to campus every weekend, we went after local talent in Kansas City and Des Moines. We thought people might have seen them before and be interested in seeing them again. Movies were another big factor in upgrading campus entertainment. We brought the best recently released movies to campus that we could, said Clark. This included ' A Star is Born, ' ' Blazing Saddles, ' ' One on One, ' ' American Graffiti, ' and ' Oh, God. ' The reaction to the movies was excellent. Another source of entertainment was found in the form of coffee- houses. There were several coffee- houses during the year, said SUB President Pam Butner. Two of the most popular were Cole Tuckey and Joniums. At the Cole Tuckey performance there were about 700 people. Most of the students who attended appeared to have had a real good time. The biggest problem that we faced during the year was our budget of $29,000, which was about $2,000 less than the budget of the previous year, said Butner. It seemed as if everyone ' s prices went up, while our budget went down. Ideas were another problem for SUB, according to Butner. We had only 25 members to come up with ideas for an entire year. We tried to get more new members at the beginning of the spring semester but ended up with only four more people. It was hard to come up with ideas to please everyone with such a small number of people involved. Despite SUB ' s problems, the College Bowl, a college quiz game, was initiated. This involved com- petition between teams at an academic level, said Clark. It proved to be one of the biggest successes of the year. The student participation was excellent for a first-time event. Student attitude toward SUB was both positive and negative. Week- ends on campus were like politics. Nothing ever happened, said Jeff Richardson. If anything happened, it was all at the same time. Jeff Sachs thought the talent SUB brought to campus was below par for a school the size of NWMSU. But Tom Bujonowski said SUB was not to blame. The people here couldn ' t have cared less about what happened on campus. They just wanted to watch TV and run home on weekends— to what, I don ' t know, he said. L Widmer 28 UNION BOARD