Junior marketing major Jennifer Cheray and junior integrated studies and pre-occupational therapy major Ashley Vogts hug after seeing that they had won the 2011 ASG presidential campaign Wednesday night in the Memorial Union. Kellen Jenkins/ The Bulletin

The new president and vice president of Associated Student Government are Ashley Vogts, junior integrated studies and pre-occupational therapy major, and Jennifer Cheray, junior marketing major, respectively. At approximately 5 p.m. last night, the election results were posted outside of the Center for Student.

“It’s feels good – we’re excited,” Vogts said. “We’ve both been involved in ASG for five years between the two of us and we were ready to take that next step and become a bigger leader within ASG. We have a passion for ESU and ASG.”

According to the election results, 755 students voted in the online election. Vogts and Cheray received 418 votes. The voting started Monday and ended at 4 p.m. yesterday. The total number of students voting increased by 66 from last year’s election.

“We really want to stick with our platform that we were running with – establish, solidfy and unite and kind of build upon those three words and the plans we’ve set forth,” Vogts said.

Vogts said they want to establish face-to-face relations between organizations and their representatives in ASG, solidify what ASG already has in terms of internal structure and unite students with the faculty. They also want Senators to be known on campus.

“There’s the Faculty Senate and the Student Senate and we really want to bridge that gap and become that liaison between students and faculty,” Vogts said.

Cheray said the toughest part of the campaign was sending their message to as many students as possible.

“We were trying to reach a diverse group of students, not hitting the same students, so that was definitely the hardest things for us to reach outside of the box and hit multiple groups of students,” Vogts said.

Vogts said the first thing the two hope to accomplish next year is the “solidify” component of their campaign. At the beginning of each fall semester, ASG has a retreat, and Vogts said the main focus for the next one will be the different roles for Senators.

Cheray said the retreat has always been about what specific committees Senators are involved with, so members only focus on one area of ASG rather than every aspect.

“We want to focus on broadening their knowledge of ASG as well as how to better communicate that information with their organizations,” Cheray said.

Vogts said another goal is to improve communication between faculty and administrators and students on campus.

“We talked to some faculty members and administration members and one thing that really stuck out was that they want student input, student relations with faculty members,” Vogts said. “That is a huge need here on campus. Sometimes students’ voices get lost.”

Vogts and Cheray said some of their biggest supporters were family members, classmates and their sorority sisters. Vogts is a member of Chi Omega and Cheray is in Alpha Sigma Alpha.

“Be looking for ASG (next year) – we’re open for any students to come to us for opinions, ideas, concerns, positive things too,” Vogts said.

Kenzie Templeton

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ASG president Jonathan Rivers discusses the upcoming elections Tuesday afternoon in the Memorial Union. Chris Franklin/ The Bulletin

Jonathan Rivers, president of Associate Student Government, announced upcoming events of the for the ASG elections at the ASG Open Forum, which was held at 2 p.m. on Tuesday in the PKP Room of the Memorial Union.

Rivers said applications for the executive positions are due tomorrow, and on April 4, senators’ petitions are due. The actual election starts on April 12 and ends at 3 p.m. April 13, Rivers said.

Three candidates also came to the forum. They talked about their goals, plans and involvements.

“Throughout the year, I’ve already begun on a plan to reform Corky’s Cab…students deserved to feel safe,” said Laura Bosiljevac, sophomore political science major and current legislative director for ASG.

Bosiljevac, together with Michael Stauffer, are running for ASG president and vice president respectively.

“Our platform can be summed up in three words – connect, communicate and accomplish…we can be the helping hand to help people connect to (ASG),” Bosiljevac said. “We know we are not all powerful, but we are the Associated Student Government – if we don’t know, we can at least send you to somebody who does know. It may take us three minutes to do that, but it will save you 3 weeks in looking for something.”

Ashley Vogts, junior integrated studies and pre-occupational therapy major, and Jennifer Cheray, junior marketing major, are also running for president and vice president of ASG. Vogts and Cheray’s current positions are fiscal affairs chair and business school senator, respectively.

“I think the main goal is that students are able to be heard,” Vogts said. “I work really closely with the leadership department and I am really educated on different leadership styles, different leadership roles and how to work with different types of leadership style, (which helps me) to become a liaison between student body and administration.”

Cheray said another goal is to build the interaction between senators and student organizations on campus. Vogts said their long-term focus is to do more cross-programming, which means to “make an event bigger and more impactful by having more organizations involved in that event.”

“For ESU to be a big part of someone’s college career, it is a lot to do with the events…and organizations they get involved with, so if we can make these events bigger, more successful, more impactful, then that college experience will be greater,” Vogts said.

In order to improve the interaction between students and ASG, both Bosiljevac and Cheray agreed that face-to-face communication between RSOs and senators is important.

“I feel like sometimes student voices are lost when it comes to the faculty and administration,” Vogts said. “We want to bridge those voices, so that people hear their concerns, complaints (and) the positive things going on.”

Cheray said improving the relationship between students and ASG should start with defining the role of each position in ASG and developing the structure ASG already has.

“I never thought (being ASG president) would be easy…no matter how much experience I had – I know it’s going to be a challenge, but I think it is a challenge worth pursuing,” Bosiljevac said.

Huibing Lu

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Out of a total of 689 Emporia State students who voted in Associated Student Government elections, 502 voted for Jonathan Rivers, junior secondary social sciences education major, and Ashley McCullough, senior communications major, as president and vice president, respectively.

“I’m really shocked and excited to know that we will have the chance to implement all of the ideas that we have,” McCullough said. “I’m just really shocked.”

Voting started on Monday and ended at 4:30 p.m. yesterday. Results were posted at 5:20 p.m. on the Center for Student Involvement’s doors.

“One thing that I really hope to accomplish is to bring as many leaders, new voices to the table than at any time before,” Rivers said. “We want to make sure that we are reaching all of the students. We want to make sure that everyone knows that ASG is here for them.”

Students who had opted out of communications from the university may have had trouble getting theballot by e-mail.

“Everything went well but we did have a little bit of an issue today with finding out that not everyone got the survey but we got that taken care of as soon as possible,” said Lauren Leif, election commissioner for ASG and junior communications major. “We had a couple of paper ballots that had to be done but no major issues.

The first order of business for Rivers and McCullough when they begin next semester will be the Big Event.

“Our planning for the Big Event is going to start off right at the beginning of the year,” Rivers said. “We’re basically trying to pull all of the students together and starting the year off right.”

While the voter turnout was not as high as it was last year at 20 percent, Leif was satisfied with the outcome.

“The voter turnout was around 11 percent which was really good for a year that didn’t have any big issues attached to it,” Leif said. “I’m just really impressed with the amount of students that took the time to vote to make sure that they had their say in the next senate.”

To help Rivers and McCullough adjust to their new positions, current ASG President Jonathan Krueger, senior political science major, will work with the duo along with current ASG Vice President Liz Coffey, junior earth science major.

They will receive a packet with all of the information they could need to do the job. They will also be invited to attend meetings and ask questions, Krueger said.

One of their main goals is to expand communication throughout the university by creating positions on ASG to foster diversity.

“We really want to get some more diverse opinions and student voice through the multicultural chair and the international chair (positions that we will create),” McCullough said.“Overall, (we want to) try to make the communication across campus a lot better.”

They will also try to expand communication by having more opportunities for students to voice their opinions, something they hope to start at the beginning of the year.

“We want to get the ball rolling on the President’s forum,” Rivers said. “If anyone has any beginning of the year questions, what their expectations are, things that they foresee us accomplishing (they would say that here). We need to make sure to meet those needs right off the bat.”

For those that voted, McCullough was grateful.

“Thank you for entrusting us with the next year at ESU and I really hope that we can fulfill (the students’) expectations and help ESU to grow and improve,” McCullough said.

While Rivers said that he was excited for the opportunity to lead the campus, he feels that he and McCullough have some “big shoes to fill.”

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Dempewolf

Rivers

Facing a crowd of about 30 students, Associated Student Government presidential and vice presidential candidates took to the podium for a debate on the Main Street of Memorial Union Monday night.

Five questions predetermined by a moderator and others offered by student spectators were asked to presidential candidates Jonathan Rivers, junior secondary social sciences education major, and Joey Dempewolf, junior marketing major, who were coupled with their vice presidential candidates, Ashley McCullough, senior communications major, and Luke Drury, freshman political science major, respectively.

Though she already knows who she’s voting for, Nicole Smith, senior early childhood education major, attended the debate with an open mind.

“(The debate) gave me a more clear understanding of the issues that both parties want to address,” Smith said. “It just defined everything and laid out what they are passionate about and what they want to get done.”

For Emily Schmar, freshman pre-engineering major, the debate allowed presentation of both candidates.

“Actually, I’d only heard of one of the parties and I knew that there were two, but I had never heard or seen the other one around,” Schmar said. “But now that I have heard from both parties, I really know who I would like to vote for.”

After listening to both parties, Smith realized that each has a plan to address the issue that is her biggest concern.

“I’d heard a lot of the points before,” Smith said. “But I think the most important thing is that they are going to address the funding issues. I really feel like that is the most important issue.”

Schmar was interested to hear the candidates view on the communication issue between ASG and Recognized Student Organizations, which both candidates address as a main goal in their campaigns.

“I really enjoyed the idea of having meetings with the RSOs and having senators going to visit with different RSOs because I didn’t really understand how ASG works, I thought it was kind of like, they put on events, like UAC I guess,” Schmar said. “But now I really understand a lot more and hope that senators will go out and if they show their face more then RSO will understand what’s going on more.”

Rivers and McCullough announced that one way they will improve communication is by adding three staff positions to ASG.

“What we’re looking to do is create several new positions to help bridge the communication gap that we feel exists here at Emporia State,” Rivers said. “Generally, we are wanting to increase communication between not only ASG and the students, but also the Emporia community and ESU as a whole.”

Dempewolf and Drury said that one important thing that should be openly communicated is information about Memorial Union renovations.

“Last year we said ‘Put the ‘U’ in the Union.’ Well this year, we’re saying we’d like to ‘Keep the ‘U’ in the Union’ by keeping you guys up to date and ensuring that you know what’s going on with the Memorial Union renovations,” Dempewolf said.

Students are encouraged to vote online on April 5-7 through a link that will be sent to their BuzzIn email account.

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