~New senators excited for what's ahead

Five first-year freshman senators were elected into Southeast Missouri State University's Student Government Association on Sept. 9.

Anna Hirner, Alexis Hightaian, Kris Harlow, Brandon Robbers and Peter Jacobsen were chosen by the election committee to serve in the SGA senate for the academic year.

SGA meets in the University Center Ballroom on Monday nights beginning at 6 p.m. On Sept. 9 the new senators were inducted into SGA and sat in and voted on their first resolutions.

Harlow said he is excited to hear all the students' opinions about life at Southeast and implement those opinions to improve the school.

"I really like the whole getting Scully to look a little better [initiative.] With Subway out there, right now there's no way of even knowing that there's a Subway in there. So I'm looking forward to making a difference with that," Harlow said.

SGA Vice President Greg Felock said when interviewing candidates committee members looked for dedication, charisma and effectively communicating with students.

"The ones that seemed extremely excited, wanted to make it kind of a way of life to them, wanted to devote their entire college experience to student government and kind of our mission [were good candidates]," Felock said. "Obviously they have great personalities, love talking to students, love talking to us and asked us a lot of tough questions for us to answer about what we do and what we want to do and kind of what the mission of student government is. That's really what kind of made them stand out is their already deep understanding of what we do and why we do it."

Felock described his first-year experience as a confusing yet exhilarating learning experience.

"It's really just learning the impact you make as a student senator, what administration does, how they listen to you, how they react to what you say," Felock said. "They really take what a senator says to heart, and they really see you as the view of all students and you kind of see how big of an impact you can have.

"That's kind of where that passion for it [SGA] comes because when you see what you do and you see the kind of effect you have on administration -- they listen to you, and that's why it's so important to talk to your students and it's kind of the spark you get as a first-year senator. It's just that big blur, but then you really click and see it and you stick around."

Before Felock began the meeting, Southeast President Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins spoke about a few of the objectives the university is planning to implement this year.

Academic Hall is scheduled to open during homecoming week on Oct. 24 after two years of renovation. It originally was built in 1905 and was the biggest building in Missouri at that time.

Dobbins hopes to work with SGA and the city to close Normal Street for an afternoon on Oct. 30 and a have a picnic and tours of Academic Hall strictly for students. This idea is still in the planning stage.

Dobbins also spoke about the opportunity for every student to have at least one class in Academic Hall.

"We've designed it so that speech is on the third floor with four classrooms," Dobbins said. "So that hopefully everyone has an opportunity to take at least one course in Academic Hall."

Other topics discussed were enrollment increases at Southeast, which have been rising for the past 19 years, 13 of those being record-breaking, and the fact that applications to travel to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., currently are being accepted. Southeast also is continuing to accept applications for the vacant provost position, and Southeast hopes to continue improving its online courses to give students the same quality as if they were enrolled in a face-to-face course.

Two of the more important topics discussed were the need to revamp the semo.edu website to make it more beneficial for students, and Dr. James Stapleton, assistant to the president for strategic and entrepreneurial activities, soon will start asking students' opinions on future majors they would like to see brought to Southeast.

Dobbins hopes to receive feedback on the proposed new majors as well as future updates they could make to the website.

For those interested in giving the president feedback on the website, he suggested emailing him at president@semo.edu.