Five months later, seven seats remain vacant.
Health Solutions Sen. Jasmine Crisostomo transferred to Grand Canyon University over winter break, leaving yet another empty position for the organization to attempt to fill in its final months. Senate President Joey Amonett said two candidates were interviewed for Crisostomo’s empty seat, and a new senator would be nominated at Friday’s meeting.
“The students of every college at the Downtown campus should have some representation in the student government,” Amonett said. “Therefore, we will continue our efforts to fill the empty Senate seats.”
The public relations department of USGD is responsible for marketing the positions, but Amonett said word-of-mouth advertising has also been used. Senators are expected to let students in their colleges know of any empty seats.
“USGD is still in its infancy,” USGD Director of Public Relations Emily Antuna said. “We have only been around for about five years and we still struggle to find a way to truly engage students in such a unique college setting.”
If Crisostomo’s Health Solutions seat is filled Friday, the college will have full representation, with Sen. Dean Thap in the other Health Solutions position.
Both the College of Nursing and Health Innovation and the School of Letters and Sciences, however, have no representation in the current Senate.
“Traditionally, USGD has not appeared to have much difficulty filling seats for Public Programs, Cronkite, Nursing and Barrett,” Amonett said. “University College, Teachers College and School of Letters and Sciences have rarely, if ever, had representation before this year.”
This year, the University College and the Teachers College each have one representative on the Senate.
Amonett said the University College has traditionally lacked representation because students are most often underclassmen searching for a field to study, leading to a hesitation to get involved. The Teachers College probably lacks representation because it is still so small on the Downtown campus, Amonett said.
University College Sen. Frank Smith said he plans to change his major to journalism with a double major in supply chain management, but he will still finish the year in his current position as appointed.
The College of Nursing and Health Innovation seats have traditionally been filled; the complete lack of representation was new this year.
“I am surprised that we have not received any applications from the College of Nursing and Health Innovation because many students in the program are active and engaged with the university,” Amonett said.
Amonett said that while a full Senate would be ideal, he is looking to fill the nursing seats and at least one seat for the School of Letters and Sciences, since the school has never had a Senator on the downtown campus.
The current USGD bylaws do not mandate a full Senate or provide any consequences for positions left vacant. Antuna said many efforts have been made to fill the open Senate seats this year.
“We’ve had many potential Senators walk away before they were even inducted into USGD,” Antuna said. “The schools with a dominant presence on campus have no trouble filling Senate seats. We just need to find a way to engage the students in the smaller colleges to join USGD.”
Contact the reporter at kevin.p.fallon@asu.edu
