New senator to represent honors and BIS students

Honors and Bachelors of Integrated Studies (BIS) students have a new senator to represent them in the Weber State University Student Association (WSUSA) Senate meetings. Honors/BIS senator Michael Shaw was presented and elected to be senator on Monday afternoon at the senate meeting in the Shepherd Union Building.
Shaw said he is very excited to take the position and said he feels he is very prepared. He presented himself and his qualifications at the senate meeting last Monday and said he is ready to take on his duties. He already has goals in mind, which are to get better representation for the Honors/BIS students and refine the image of Honors and BIS.
“I would like to maintain or create better consistencies in the Honors/BIS school,” Shaw said.
Immediately after the previous Honors/BIS senator resigned, Shaw began attending senate meetings as a proxy, or stand-in. This helped him to become familiar with the correct procedures and policies surrounding student senate.
Student Senate President Elene Kvernadze said she feels Shaw is capable and very prepared for taking this position in the middle of the semester because of his involvement with WSUSA.
“He has sat in on so many of the senate meetings just this year he already knows how things work,” Kvernadze said. “He could hit the ground running.”
Kvernadze said Shaw has previously run for this position and was immediately interested in filling in for the preceding senator. Kvernadze said this showed her that Shaw is very interested and dedicated to student senate.
“He has this passion for changing and making things better at Weber State,” Kvernadze said. “I think that is such an important thing for senators to have. The moment I saw that in him I realized he was a good candidate.”
WSUSA advisers have also been looking for a candidate to fill the Asian/Polynesian senator position, which has been vacant for several weeks. They will be holding interviews for students that have applied for this position and will be presenting a candidate to the senate in the next two weeks.
Shaw is taking the place of Meghan Froerer, who resigned over a month ago for personal reasons. Other senators have resigned during the semester, and WSUSA has made it a goal to retain senators throughout the semester.
WSUSA President Tyler Lathem said they have worked hard to maintain 90 percent retention of these positions. They also had the goal of having all the senate positions filled at the beginning of the semester. Lathem said they have been able to meet these goals.
“At one point we did have all the positions filled, and now through turnover, for different reasons, we have open positions now, but we are working to get those filled,” Lathem said.
Supreme Court Justice Chris Bentley said the case is often that senators become too busy and are unable to complete their duties.
“A couple of years ago we were constantly trying to get positions filled, either because people didn’t have time or their grades slipped,” Bentley said.
Senators regularly meet with their advisers to make sure they are performing well in their classes in order to continue to serve on the student senate.
Senators also might step down if their schedule becomes too hectic or conflicts with student senate duties. This is the case with Athletics Senator Zach Parry, who announced in Monday’s meeting that he would be resigning at the end of this semester. He will continue as the athletics senator for the next few weeks, and then another candidate will need to be found and presented to the senate for ratification.
Information regarding student government or senate positions is available online at www.weber.edu/Student Involvement.