MSA notices increase in Senate candidates

By Anna Koeppel

Published Feb. 29, 2008

This year’s Missouri Students Association Senate elections have drawn 166 candidates for 50 available seats. Last year, according to a Senate report, only 26 students were elected to fill the same number of seats.

The seats are divided proportionally among each academic college.

MSA Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays, who was elected to his second term Wednesday, cited more promotion of the election as the reason for higher interest.

“Because we need a Senate that represents everybody on campus, we fliered the heck out of it,” Mays said.

Mays said he made a special effort to advertise the election with banners and fliers in areas that are usually overlooked.

“We’ve put a lot of resources into reaching the outer ends of campus,” Mays said.

MSA Department of Student Communications Director Billy Eilbracht said he has tried to make advertising the election his main priority.

“I firmly believe that the infrastructure of MSA is important to build up before we think about our exterior goals,” he said.

Eilbracht said it is important that Senate fill all the seats.

“We try to show everybody on campus what exactly the benefit of Senate is to them,” Eilbracht said.

Although fliers and advertisements say the deadline to apply for Senate is today, the deadline has been extended to midnight Monday. Tuesday is the last day the Division of Information Technology can add candidates’ names to the ballot.

“We’re not going to turn people away until the IT department cuts us off and we can’t get their names on the ballot anymore,” Mays said.

Board of Elections Commissioners Chairman Geoff Grammer said MSA had done most of the promotion work, and the BEC is signing up candidates and teaching them election rules and procedures. The BEC held two training sessions Thursday, and sessions are scheduled for 7 p.m. next Tuesday and Thursday.

At the training candidates will be taught how to fill out forms, what their Senate responsibilities would be and what candidates can and cannot do in the course of campaigning, Grammer said.

He said students didn’t know how to get involved last year.

“It’s a lot easier than it was before, and it’s out there more,” he said.

Grammer said Senate’s candidate goal number is 200. He said that at the rate people are signing up, there is a good possibility students will meet the goal.

“Within the last week, we’ve gone from three candidates to close to 160,” he said. “It could happen. It would be great if it did.”

Changes in enrollment led to changes in the amount of seats held by students from the School of Journalism, which lost a seat, and the College of Human Environmental Sciences, which gained a seat.

The College of Arts and Science holds the most seats in Senate, 18, with the College of Business in second place with 9.

Registration ends Tuesday, and voting is March 17 through 19. Students will receive an e-mail with a link to the voting site.