The University of Wisconsin student body will determine who will be its represention in the 2009-10 school year by casting votes in the Associated Students of Madison elections Monday through Wednesday next week.
Students will have the opportunity to vote for future members of their Student Council, Student Services Finance Committee and senior class officers.
Although such elections are conducted on a yearly basis, this year’s election stands out in comparison to the rest, especially in regards to the Student Council ballot.
“I’m really excited because it’s a very diverse group of candidates, which is something I haven’t seen before,” ASM’s Student Elections Commission Chair Katherine Tondrowski said.
Although several current Student Council members will be re-running in hopes of maintaining their position on student government, this year’s ballot contains an unprecedented representation of a diverse group of candidates, Tondrowski said.
Candidates for the Student Council are represented from the College of Letters and Science, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences School of Veterinary and Medicine, College of Engineering, School of Medicine and Public Health, and members from the UW graduate school.
The group For Accessibility, Community and Empowerment of Students will also be running, consisting of seven of the 19 Student Council candidates running for the 29 open positions, ASM Rep. Jeff Wright said.
“I think these are students interested in bringing their concerns and interests, and the more power to them,” Wright said. “We’ll have to see who gets elected and the direction they set once they take office.”
Although the members are running and campaigning with the same resources and ideas, each candidate will have to be elected individually, Tondrowski said. She added that although candidates are diverse, a lot of them are campaigning under similar platforms.
“Diversity (and) ASM’s role … will be a major theme or something a lot of candidates will talk about,” Tondrowski said. “As far as I know, there are no opposing viewpoints.”
Wright said the existing council is excited to see the results of the poll, especially regarding the intensified restructuring efforts that have occurred and are continuing to be discussed this year.
“I think there has been some good progress this year in a number of things we wanted to do, from the press office to starting a large discussion — to put it lightly — about restructuring,” he said. “It’s going to be up to the current Council to take lessons learned from this session and pass them on, and at some level, the earnest is on the incoming reps to take this and apply it.”
The elections will take place electronically April 13 to April 15. The ballot will be available on the ASM website, www.asm.wisc.edu.
