Our team, which is made up of Lisa Baron, Karen Maylone and Steve Bulthuis, will be running for the Student Senate Executive elections this Friday. Lisa Baron, our candidate for vice-president, is a junior this year and is spending the current semester in Spain. She has had two years of experience on Student Senate. Karen Maylone is a sophomore and is majoring in English with aspirations of being an English professor. Karen, our candidate for secretary, has been a part of the Senate this year and has worked hard establishing contacts with various faculty and staff. Steve Bulthuis, our candidate for president, is currently a junior and is a Political Science major interested in going to law school. He also has one year experience on Senate. Our team has four years of experience between us. Because of our past experience in Calvin’s Student Senate, we are up- to- date on current projects, have a good deal of knowledge about past projects and have a considerable amount of leads on future projects. We hope to improve the Senate’s communication with the student body in order to more easily hear what you have to say. We also hope to improve the view that students have of Student Senate.

Our agenda matters little, but the students’ ideas do matter! It is not so much what we think but what the students think. If YOU want something changed, that is what is important to us.

Although our most important goal is to be representatives of the student body, there are a few specific areas at Calvin College that we think we can improve upon. One of these is better food. The food service needs to be constantly improved until the quality of the food is at a level that we all can be satisfied with. Second, as many of you know, a few local businesses offer discounts to Calvin Students.

We see a need to add more discounts for Calvin Students in the Grand Rapids area through working with a wide range of local businesses. We realize that students often times don’t have extra cash to throw around, and more discounts would help your budget. Next, we wish to bring a more frequent number of high profile events to Calvin’s Campus, such as more well-known speakers and bands. We also hope to give students more say in decisions that are made at Calvin College. We really do want the students to get involved. Finally, we seek to give Calvin a reputation that is far superior to other liberal arts colleges.

These are just a few items that we would like to see changed, but again we are most interested in what the student has to say. Our overall goal is to make Calvin College the best place for you!

Our team, which includes Ken Zylstra, Jake Schenkel, and Kyle Sheehan, is running for the Student Senate. Though we have not been on the Student Senate before, we have been involved in many other student leadership positions on campus, which has allowed us to develop leadership and organizational skills. As a freshman, candidate Ken Zylstra, a junior, started the Pep Band and directed this organization for three years. He was the president of Rooks-Van Dellen his sophomore year, and is currently a Resident Assistant in Bolt-Heyns-Timmer. He has also been involved with the Environmental Stewardship Coalition. Jake Schenkel, a junior, has been involved in student leadership as a floor Activities Counselor and at C.V.N. This year Kyle Sheehan, also a junior, is a Resident Assistant in Beets- Veenstra.

We feel that these experiences have connected us to the student body; we plan to bring and build those connections while in Student Senate. We hope to construct a bridge between Senate, students, and the administration to promote open communication and awareness. The Student Senate is a powerful tool of the students. We plan to use it as such.