JOSH RANNEY
News Editor
There were plenty of open seats in McEwen G26 on Sept. 6 for the Student Association’s first General Assembly meeting of the semester. However, many of the empty seats will soon be filled by newly elected and re-elected class representatives as SA begins their new year of Fredonia student governance.
The Student Association is coming into this semester having undergone some personnel changes.
At the executive level, Chief Justice Christian Krasnek replaces Chief Justice William “Bill” Bradley who graduated in May. Also, Seth Meyer, a sophomore political science and media management major will be up for election for Speaker of the Assembly after serving as Assistant Speaker to former Speaker Nathaniel Clark who also graduated.
With Clark’s graduation, this will be the first semester that SA will have a new Speaker in nearly three years.
“I started out kind of like a deer in the headlights,” Meyer said, after adjourning his first General Assembly meeting as chair. Meyer did admit, though, that there are things he is looking forward to.
“I’m excited for the new reps to come in. I’m excited for new participation. I think everyone in the leadership got a lot of interest going, so I’m excited to see new faces,” said Meyer.
Being as young as he is for an SA executive, Meyer will potentially have a few years to make the speakership his own. But as of now, he says there’s not much he’s spearheading so far.
“There’s nothing on record that I’m trying to change about the system [or] the way we’ve been doing things. I just think it’s my attitude and engaging people to make SA look less scary,” Meyer said.
Meyer will continue to chair the Rules Committee as he did last semester in his capacity as Assistant Speaker. As it stands now, the Rules Committee will only have two members on it according to Meyer.
President Connor Aitcheson is entering his second semester as the chief executive of the Student Association.
Aitcheson described the change in leadership as a “huge shift.”
“There’s a learning curve, obviously, for a lot of those people,” said Aitcheson, “but it’s very easy to do so when you have the systems in place that we do.”
Aitcheson expressed confidence in not only the systems and procedures but also the Student Association Constitution to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Aitcheson explained that he and the rest of the association developed their repore with clubs and those who they represent last semester.
“With regards to this semester, I’m really hoping to spearhead a lot of the initiatives that we got feedback on last semester, get more student involvement and representation across the board through administration and committees throughout campus,” said Aitcheson.
Aitcheson highlighted the issue of campus safety as something he is working on right away.
“I plan to work closely with [the] administration as well as Chief Ann Burns and University Police to develop an education program that will help educate our students on personal protection as well as systematic protection in the event of any sort of emergency that may happen on our campus,” he said.
These endeavors, including campus community safety are reasons why, according to Aitcheson, it is so important that people run for class representative and get themselves involved.
“The main reason to run is to make sure your voice is heard,” said Aitcheson. “It’s easy to sit there and have opinions, but it’s beneficial to make sure your opinions are heard.”
He explained that getting having a diverse body of representatives ensures that Fredonia’s student government truly mirrors the makeup of the campus, and not run by one section of people.
One issue that was not brought up at this first general assembly meeting but surely will in the weeks to come is the Student Activity referendum.
Every other year, Fredonia students must vote whether they would like the student activity fee to be mandatory or voluntary to pay. Making the fee mandatory, as it is now, ensures that every student contributes to the sum of money that is used by clubs and organizations to carry out their programming.
Having it voluntary makes the total amount of money for that programming uncertain.
Aitcheson said he believes the referendum is important because it puts the control directly in the hands of the students.
“I think it’s important to make sure they have a say and they determine if we’re effectively using the activity fee.”
The Student Association will be rolling out information on the activity fee in the coming weeks, but as for now, the executives are focused on building representation and voicing the opinions and concerns of the students of Fredonia.
The class representative election will be held on Sept. 18, starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 9 p.m. on Sept. 19.