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WSU announces new student senators

4-4 Student Senators(Jake Alvey)-7
(Photo by Jake Alvey) Sammuel Hobbs accepts his certificate for traditional students senator during the election announcement Friday.

Senate winners celebrated in the Shepherd Union Atrium on Friday during the 2014-15 election winners announcement. However, the lack of student body presence showed a disconnect between Student Involvement & Leadership and the Weber State University community. Less than 100 students attended the celebration.

The senator receiving the highest total number of votes was Samuel Hobbs at 221, securing the traditional students senator chair.

Hobbs said the No. 1 thing he hopes to accomplish this year in senate is to give the library, gym and bookstore extended service hours.

Kurt Kunzler, who ran for College of Business & Economics senator, had the next highest number of votes at 134.

Kunzler said he was fairly confident he had won, until he realized he did not campaign at the Davis campus during the week he spent campaigning. His first goal in office is to increase the number of students who attend events at the Goddard School of Business & Economics.

Jennifer Wylie became the African American senator, and will have a big role in Senate representing all of the African American students on campus.

Solmaz Hosseinnia was the first senator to fill the newly created graduate student seat, and was re-elected to serve another year advocating for graduate program students.

Sandi Weber was also re-elected for another year as the nontraditional students senator, with 202 students voting.

Weber said she is excited to continue working on her current project of helping eliminate the walls nontraditional students run into on their road to graduation.

“We need to find the processes that can stop students in their tracks, then refine and re-establish those policies so students can start moving towards graduation,” she said.

Hispanic students senator Andrea Salcedo, College of Health Professions senator Kelsey Johnson, Davis campus senator Tyler Hall and students with disabilities senator Melissa Reese were also re-elected.

WEWIN(Hailey Mayes)
(By: Hailey Mayes) Weber State University 2014/15 Senate election winners.

Hall said he was slightly disappointed in what he was able to accomplish this last year in senate due to the large learning curve of being a rookie senator.

“The last legislative season was a season of ‘no’ for Davis campus,” Hall said. “However, this upcoming legislative season will be a season of ‘yes’ for Davis campus, due to the experience I have now as a senator.”

First-time senators included College of Applied Sciences senator Jared Smith, College of Science senator Chelsea Bybee, College of Education senator Betsy Lopez, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences senator Val Toreno, and College of Arts & Humanities senator Ashlee Cawley.  

Cawley said that even though she hoped she would win, she was not confident she was the winner until her name was called, because of the high-quality race Jacob Dame ran. Cawley also said her first goal in office is to be approachable, and be someone arts and humanities students can contact whenever they have a problem.

“I have talked to so many arts and humanities student over the last four days, and I have so many ideas on what I want to accomplish during this year,” she said. “I am ecstatic that I won!”

Other first-time senators are honors/BIS students senator Clarence “Boomer” Kelley, a position currently held by Joe Favero, 2014-15 student body president; residence halls senator Anastasia Austin; veterans senator Kyle Poppitz; American Indian students senator Evan Chief; Asian students senator Juhi Dubal; Pacific Islander students senator Jared Shaw; international students senator Hasan Nazam, and athletics senator Cash Knight.

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