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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