DS View: Leadership

SENATE: Elected student officials begin new semester with a fresh start and the opportunities for change.

As the new school year begins, so does a new term of Student Senate.

This year, Student Senate has an opportunity to make some real changes on campus and the lives of the students it represents.

With a new group of students in the senate, the group will be able to take advantage of a fresh start and bring the student body more positive results than the senate before them.

We are looking forward to having a solid budget in place to better serve the students of UND and more discussion prior to the passing of bills and resolutions. In previous terms, Student Senate spent an enormous amount of money  without seriously considering the consequences, or simply refrained from spending anything because they were afraid of making tough choices. Such behavior does this university and its students a disservice.

We think students’ fees could be put toward campus projects that are requested by students.

This semester, the student senate is sending five executive members to a conference in Washington D.C. on a trip that costs in excess of $1,500 per person. That’s a substantial amount of money to put toward a trip that could be used instead to help the UND student body. While we do appreciate that they took the time to discuss how to keep costs down at their first meeting of the year, we hope they will be as generous with student funds when it comes to spending them on the rest of the students.

As elected officials, it is the duty of the student senators to represent the people who gave them the positions they hold. We hope the senators will listen to the students they represent and will be able to bring some very positive changes to our campus.

We, The Dakota Student editorial board, have confidence in the new senate as it begins a new year. We hope to see them working as hard as they can and using their positions to actively improve our school every chance they get.

While some years, senate has not taken advantage of the opportunities it has to make real changes, we hope the new senate will remind us all that there are people who are ambitious and willing live up to their promises instead of just making promises to get themselves elected.

So, from the editorial board, we wish the new senate the best of luck in this new school year and we’ll be seeing you in the news.