Voting can be found in WyoCourses in the “Student Hub” course under “Assignments.”
Question 1: What have you completed as a senator? (returning) / What are your goals as a senator? (new)
Question 2: What practices will you do to keep meetings efficient and effective?
Question 3: What does it mean to be a Poke?
Nick Bogani
Q1: So I’ve voted on a lot. I haven’t written much legislation like I actually just submitted a bill, this past week. It’s a hat bill for senators to wear their favorite hat. On the last day of the administration. Yeah, so that’s probably the only piece of legislation I’ve written. But I also have a voting record, my biggest votes have been like a vote yes on the freedom of expression bill. And I vote no on the germane bill because germane. Because you’re told to get back on topic, but what going off topic is, is very vague. So those are two things I’ve voted on. I sat on it sort of last semester. I got a lot of the requests approved with them. And I’ve sat on TAS FRC both semesters. We basically just had a bunch of fee reviews in October and we just went through that. And basically we just decided what student fees are going toward which places and so we’ve been doing that, mainly last semester. This semester has been a little less busy with TAS FRC, except we do have a financial awareness week coming up soon.We’ll be doing stuff that has a committee for that. And I just joined that homecoming outreach planning and elections committee this semester, because there was a time conflict with SOSB and basically we just get all the homecoming stuff done not not this semester. This semester, We’ve been dealing a lot with elections. And I had to call like a couple of caterers for food to get that situated. So I called Handale Rapido. It got voted down in the long run. But yeah, so there’s like pizza and coffee and doughnuts. So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing as a Senator for the past year. I hope, in the next year, maybe I want to focus on writing more legislation next year. So maybe I will write a resolution in favor of parking. Or in favor of trying to repeal the land acknowledgement statement and replacing it with a more inclusive Wyoming value statement. That’s not so partial to one group of people. So that’s kind of what I want to get started with next year.
Q2: So, I like to put up like the green card, probably like a half hour before everyone’s done speaking. I will motion the previous question if I have to. I did vote against the Senate session having to end at 10:45pm only because of limited freedom of expression. I don’t think there’s much of a good incentive there. But if we just use our time in committees more, use that more efficiently than then I think we can see more fruitful discussion in there. And the shorter Senate meetings because people have commitments, they have classes, the next morning, they have homework, there’s just a lot there’s a lot going on there. So I feel like that’d be good just to use our time wisely and committees. And our main thing should be voting on legislation in Senate and not talking about it. I think time management is a big thing as well. I don’t tend to manage my time as well as I would like to sometimes. So I’m working on that. And I think everyone else is working on that too. So I think a big thing is coming into those meetings prepared and going into committee meetings and also being prepared there and participating isn’t absolute. Tell me about some of your current involvement on campus. I’ve been involved in turning point
USA. I started going in January 2023. I’m the Chief of Staff at that club once again. The first semester I got here, we hosted three speakers, Christian Watson, Ian Howard and Chuck gray. So this is talking about different topics. We’ve had topics like how men can fight for life, the delusion of diversity, politics and how to win with conservatism. And Sean Campbell will be here in a couple weeks. He’ll be talking about why conservatism is good for your mental health. We go to Albany County Republican party meetings once per month. I’m in Young Americans for Liberty. Sometimes we have some discussions. I mean, it’s just that’s pretty much we do for both clubs. I go to Spanish club every now and then. We play mostly play games and converse with each other. I started going to the stock market club, learned about stocks I’m not very good with it. But I feel like the more time I spend at that club, and the more time I spend in my classes as well, the more I’ll come to appreciate the stock market and finance as well. But in all those clubs I’ve been there are a lot of really nice people. Actually I really found good friend groups from getting involved and I would recommend anybody, go find your interests and then go join those clubs that represent your interests. And you’ll find a lot of friends in there.
Q3: Well, I think being a student is one thing, you got to be good students. So you just got to be respectful, is the biggest thing. When you show people respect, people really like that and they’ll show you that same amount of respect back of course. So you do that. And another thing, and this is actually one of the things I’m running on is freedom of expression. So like being open minded and hearing all different points of view. It’s not just being able to freely express yourself, like being able to say whatever you want. It’s also being able to listen to all different sides and see which which ideas are the most prosperous. So the best ideas in the long run will prosper as we’ve seen a lot. You got to be courageous. You got to live with courage every single day. Because if you don’t live with courage, then you can’t really advocate for what you want, especially in a Senate setting. You have to be able to have courage and to
advocate to speak out against things that might not be right. That’s pretty much what it means to be a poke. And to be spirited as well. It’s just to really be in the spirit of being a cowboy. To know about the Wyoming culture. Yeah, just being a part of that.
Jonathan Brown
Q1: I think a lot of the work that I’ve done was in the student funding board. And so I’ve chaired as the Secretary on a couple of committees, but I do a lot of going to funded events and kind of just overseeing allocations, how the overall events go and doing evaluations. I’ve also sponsored a couple of different pieces of legislation. Well, you don’t even have access to all of our work or legislation this year anyways, because we’re terrible at this transparency thing, but I know some ones on the top of my head that I was I did a lot more advocating for was the freedom of expression resolution in the fall. I can’t remember at this point, if that was added on as a formal sponsor, but I know I had a lot of talks with which we’re trying to get that one across the finish line. And then another one that I did more after the initial tabling was the transparency bill in the fall. And the [international] students transportation bill after it had been tabled.
Q2: I think one of the things that this previous administration didn’t do the best job that we need to do better going forward is utilizing our informal chats. And kind of just if you’re not on the committee, contacting people that way instead of waiting for floor time. Another thing that we’ve been getting better at is introducing bills that hadn’t been proposed in the chat and just kind of soliciting advice and co sponsors. I’m a big believer that this is committee government. We’re not party government. We’re committing government. So the bulk of our work is going to get done on committees. And it’s not necessarily drawn around partisan lines. Senate, in my opinion is more of a, not formality, but a public forum anything that needs to be aired in a more public setting goes there. Anything that can be worked out behind the scenes should be and I think that would shave a lot of time. Overall.
Q3: I think for me it’s more along the outline of university Wyoming as Wyoming the state and it’s a lot of individual expression, and a lot of kind of just being comfortable being yourself, especially in larger settings. A lot of the work that we do more collaboratively is more informal kind of neighbors type mentality. And so it’s not a forced extension of required assistance. It is people helping people because the genuine eating and care towards others. I love when I go to the airport and I hadn’t met you don’t have on them. They just here Go Pokes out of the distance. Like I had never met that person will never see that person ever again. But there’s a common bond and identity there that exudes a positive connotation that I think is welcomed and something that people need just kind of in their everyday lives. I think it’s special when people who are pokes and go out to the rest of the world because they have a unique experience as a result of being a very unique institution. And bringing things a lot into perspective. I got to interact over spring break with a lot people from New York and explaining them how water rights work is really interesting, because that’s something I never think of like ever. Because that’s not an issue for them. And so it’s like it’s really cool for me to have those experiences with that because it’s very eye opening. Living in Wyoming being a pope is a very unique experience. And it’s something that, while we do love our community here, it’s fun for us to get to go out into the world and to share that with people. And so I think it’s something that’s both internal in terms of shared community and respect for one another, but also kind of taking that experience and making the world a better place because of it.
Sophia Gomelsky
Q1: I authored a resolution opposing efforts by the legislature to prohibit “diversity, equity and inclusion” at UW. This resolution had the highest number of student-at-large sponsors of any piece of legislation at ASUW this year (and potentially ever).
On the Student Organization Funding Board, I have been an advocate for increasing funding opportunities for student orgs, and increased transparency on how the committee makes its decisions.
I’ve worked alongside several fellow ASUW members in working on the Student Transportation Bill which will help create an ASUW DIA Transportation Shuttle Service. This will help with students that are currently lacking reliable transportation options during break, especially international students.
I am currently working on a Reading Week resolution, which will help advocate for students’ rights and well-being during what is typically referred to as “dead week” or the week before finals.
I also serve on the Advocacy, Diversity & Planning Committee, as well as the Ad Hoc Tenants Rights Committee.
Q2: I think that a lot of the time, people in ASUW are sitting in committee meetings but don’t achieve as much as they want to. I’m hoping that with the next administration, we’ll be able to have an exam executive branch is a little bit more open towards passion projects and projects that kind of produce more material outcomes for students, and to make that more possible.
Q3: Okay, like part of my campaign this year and last year was wearing like a pink cowboy hat, which I think is pretty symbolic of, I think it means to be a poke, which is, you know, just making sure that we’re increasing engagement involvement with our community and giving back I think civic engagement is something that’s really important to me, especially youth participation and making sure that students and young people have a voice, especially in Wyoming because our politics and government are so accessible. I feel like we should be making sure the students and their voices are being amplified and being represented really well, instead of not being heard. So I think it’s just you know, a sense of community in like belonging, and then I guess just involvement overall for everyone to be able to feel included in that. The world needs more cowboys.
Will Greiner
Q1: So my first priority as Senator, to put a little background on it. I am an RA currently, and I plan to continue being an RA next year as a senator. If elected, I plan to keep those residents as one of my top priorities. Obviously every student of the university is a priority to me. But I think freshmen and people who live in the dorms have a much more close connection to this campus as they’re here all the time. They don’t leave campus, they don’t go home. So I think it’s really important that we prioritize those students and we make sure that they have the best experience possible. And then we do everything that we can to ensure that their experience is productive and safe and healthy for them.
Q2: Great. That’s a really important question. Thank you for expounding on it just. I think the most important part of any meeting of a group like ASUW is to not stray too far from the plate. The point we are there for is to help as many people as we can and create the best campus environment. We might have differing opinions on how to do that, but ultimately, that’s why they’re there. The seven hour meeting you’re referring to a lot of that was people going off of the topic, the topic was one specific piece of legislation. And people kept trying to slow it down and like, do political fights with it. And I think for me, the practices that I want to take to make sure that we can eliminate that as much as possible. I’m going to try to stick to the point as much as possible, because ultimately at the end of the day, the more pieces of legislation we can pass that help people, the more help we’re doing, right. So eliminating things like, taking a pointless recess, when if we have five more minutes of debate, if we can eliminate having to make too many side motions, if we can eliminate trying to do anything like that and just keeping things to the point because we’re going to have to vote on it. And I think it’s very important that we respect not only our time but the other students time and make sure that we can make the most forward motion possible.
Q3: I love this question because a different answers for me. I love them. We are the cowboys. You know, like other universities. It’s like they have this thing that they’re branded on. But for us cowboys like such a part of our culture. Like we just know that we have the cowboy that everyone goes and hangs out. Everyone goes into swing dancing, and it’s like this part of our culture that everyone participates in. And I just think it’s very important to us that we have such a unique culture here at Wyoming that everyone enjoys. I’ve gotten to meet so many people from other countries that come and be pokes. And they just love the fact that everyone here is so community first, and everyone focuses on the community we have here. Regardless of what that means, just like going to hang out or like having the sort of cowboy community values of like everyone works together and helps each other out. And I think that’s really beautiful that we have that here.
Briana Harper
Q1: One of my biggest priorities especially right now I’m on first year Senate. I’m chair of procedures and I’m also on the ad hoc committee for parking within ASUW. And as living in the dorms and knowing safety and knowing where parking is parking far away and also with like a lot but it does go on campus, especially in like dim-lit areas. We need to increase parking along with having that safety aspect of it too. So that means decreasing like parking tickets and parking fines, especially when students can’t really pay for a lot of their needs, for food or dietary or whatever they need, especially medical too, it’s so expensive. So helping with the parking, decreasing those fees. That’s something that I really want to come in and get into another one that I want to do, especially inclusivity on campus. This is home for 1000s of students, some students when they go home like once a year like for j term, and even then some just stay here and there’s so much division and so much stuff that does go on at the University of Wyoming. There needs to be a place where we can all come together and just have a home because this is home for me and 1000s of other students and just having that inclusivity and not being lack of better terms segregated for different parts based on who we are based on like our gender what we identify as like this is a place where we all come together and so that needs to be allocated for especially for those who don’t feel safe like just going to class because they feel like they’re the only person there they need to be welcomed and just having that good environment to. Also going along with that decreasing street fee dollars. Yeah, um, we’re paying for so much that we don’t even know what we’re paying for. I was on T SOC last semester and just seeing what we’re paying for and our student fee dollars. It’s ridiculous hundreds of dollars are going to places that we don’t know where it’s going. And so that needs to be transparent to students, or they need to be abolished. I would say because at the end of the day, we shouldn’t be paying like $60 for one thing. That can pay for like two two groceries for a student. And that’s such a big price cut especially for someone that’s living paycheck to paycheck. And so just advocating for students that are here that need a place to call home like this needs to be a safe campus where everyone feels welcomed. That’s not a place where they just come to school. This isn’t high school. This is real life and so just having a place inclusively good parking and decrease in student fee dollars.
Q2: Good question. So during the 2am meeting I made a quip about my therapy appointments on Tuesday, because I tend to stack it all on Tuesdays. I have SOFB, I have therapy and I’ve senate. And I think it’s like a really good triple hitter, keeps things balanced. I think it’s because of personal opinions. I truly believe that personal opinions are what are leading meetings to taking as long as they do, which I think is good because most of the times it is efficient discourse that is happening. But sometimes we get stuck in like kind of you know that whirlpool of we keep going in circles to the point where it’s redundant. And we don’t really get to see the point. We don’t know where we’re at anymore. And it’s gotten to the point where we have to be like vice president Anderson, what are we even voting on? You know, and it gets confusing on where we’re at during our meeting and what we’re working on. And that can be an issue because then people don’t necessarily understand what they’re voting on. Just maintaining effective discourse and committees and just meeting with each other on campus. I mean, we’re allowed to talk about legislation. We as long as we’re creating that open dialogue and we’re communicating with others. We shouldn’t be sponsors on legislation. We should be working on resolutions. We shouldn’t necessarily be submitting the same bill three times over just because it keeps getting tabled indefinitely. It should be changed. It should be worked on and more senators should come and join the table.
Q3: That is a tough question. And I’m gonna relate it back to taking a year and a half off from school. Yeah, so prior to me taking a year and a half off, I despised Wyoming. I despised the culture. I despised the school. It may have been because I came here during COVID As soon as I came back, I found this campus to be the most beautiful, cultural, inclusive, diverse campus ever. I got to drop into Cal Tech, UCLA, Seattle, Washington, places on the East Coast. And again, I kept coming back to Wyoming and kept realizing that this allowed for such a positive culture that allowed you to really interact with so many different opportunities. I mean, you can go to an engineering club and go to competitive speech club and then, go swim in the afternoons you know, there’s there’s so much to do. And I’m not much of an outdoors person, but Wyoming fosters like specifically Laramie, Laradise is such a communal aspect, that it just helps you really build your people basis for being on campus and it really helps me being the student I am right now from coming back last spring, joining organizations becoming the student representative. I wouldn’t be starting the research projects I started without that year and a half off, coming back and respecting Wyoming and building that relationship with Wyoming over again with being here for 21 years. I don’t think I would have been able to become the poke that I am.
Ray Heffley
Q1: My priorities are really just going to be making sure that every student has access to ASUW. And making sure that every student feels like they can be represented. One of my big things I really want to push in my campaign is that I’m not a politician. I’m not trying to go to any of the political groups, because I don’t want to feel like people can’t approach me from any side of the aisle with any of their concerns. Because I feel like that is one of the issues in ASUW right now is that people don’t feel like they can go to every senator who’s supposed to be representing them at large.
Q2: I’m a really big believer in if your point has been said, you should not re-mention your point. If somebody has said like an argument that you have, we have little cards that you can wave when you agree with something so I’m a really big proponent of using our little cards and making sure that we’re not being too redundant. Now, if it’s something that’s like, really important and that you want to like, hammer home, then I could see reiterating that but making it concise, because I feel like a lot of the really long as you know meetings are drawn out because people just want to keep talking about things we’ve already covered. And I think that was one of the big reasons I was a proponent of Germane was we need to everybody’s voice and opinion is incredibly important in ASUW and I want everybody to be able to speak. But if you if you’re adding nothing new to the conversation, then maybe you should rethink
your thoughts. And that’s kind of how I approach every talk I have in every speech I give in ASUW.
Q3: Oh, goodness gracious. That’s a really loaded question. Yeah. So when I was looking for schools to come to I had really no idea what kind of school I wanted to go to and what kind of person I wanted to be in college. And the minute I stepped foot on this campus, I had like, I think the closest spiritual moment I’ve ever had and ever will have a wish, just like, I have found my place here. And again, UW provides such a special opportunity to its students, not only because it’s so low cost, but because we’re the only school in Wyoming, like the only state college in Wyoming so we get every opportunity that a lot of other schools have to split up. And so I feel like being a poke just means, doing everything you want, and everything that you have access to, because it’s just there, being a poke means, just having the initiative and the drive to do whatever you set your heart to. Because at UW you have the opportunity and the chance to do that.
Lucie Holt
Q1: My priorities are the preservation of free speech, the pursuit of knowledge and truth and the mitigating of division and unity amongst students.
Q2: Well, I’ve never been a Senator before so I’ve only ever attended, and sat through 2 whole meetings before, but just as an outsider’s perspective, there was a lot of petty arguing, and stuff like that. So I really would like to be as efficient possible.
Q3: It means a lot to me, actually. I am a fourth generation student. But I think especially like in the last 10-15 years, there’s been a lot of division among the student body and no one really wants to talk to each other anymore. Even if they we know that they would agree politically or theologically with each other. They just don’t want to be out and social anymore. Like it’s really sad how people don’t want to be around other people. And so I think that it used to be something along the lines of being a community and being active with each other. And I want to get back to that because I don’t think it is that anymore.
Hannah Jackim
Q1: I actually have a platform called the SAT. It involves student involvement, advocacy, and transparency because those seem to be things that have lacked on campus. And if they are not lacked then they just kind of get pushed to the wayside. I would just want to make sure it’s an upright priority for everyone. And I want it to be my priority and my promise to everyone.
Q2: So I actually have legislation in the works already. I have listened in and I’ve sent all the meetings for the full senate, even if I’m just a first year senator, so I can get a grasp as to how they run their meetings if it’s efficient, and it’s not what can be improved. So legislation isn’t always the best way to go. But in this case, it would be they’ve already tried hard time limits and I want to kind of push that again, and make sure that people know that we’re not shutting out their voices, but we’re trying to make sure that we also value their health and safety and being out to late and working to late can also be stressful.
Q3: So being a poke is very important to me because I never really had a home I was a military child. So finding a place where I can have all my values supported by an entire group and met by an entire community, the resilience, the strength and just the passion to keep going and give back is something that is embodied by posts all around me. And I want to better myself through that, and this gives me that chance.
Clayton Keasling
Q1: So this year I supported the committee records standardization act. I was one of the couple of people to sponsor it. That made it to where standing committees have minutes and record officially. That was not something that had officially existed before this year.
Before it was withdrawn, [there was a bill] to change the office hour requirements on like, distance, whether it’s in the office or whatnot. Turns out that that issue just hadn’t been changed.
I wrote a resolution with former president Smith and Senator Meiklejohn on ASUW’s budgetary realignments based on all of the issues that had arose at the end of last year. So we passed that. I helped write the special project allocation legislation for this year. So that’s various projects around campus. One that I remember was treadwall for half acre.
I did some revisions to PIDs program and institutional development committees. Working documents to do some minor issues that have arose. I’m not an author on the budget but I had a huge part of the budget for this year. As a member of the budgeting and planning committee.
I wrote a bill on steering back to the author because that was an issue that we’ve had multiple times this year. I have two bills in committee right now on updating IOC so that it reflects what our actual practices are. And then I’m working on some legislation for the committee of the whole procedure.
So really, this year to some extent has been internal. I will be the first to admit it. But I think some of these changes were necessary. And so my hope is that I can get rid of all of the necessary internal bills this year, and then we can look to more external bills next year. Some of those ended up being quote internal bills, but as a rule are external. So like if we change transparency or outreach policy, that’s an internal bill but ultimately it affects students as a whole.
And then of course, I’ve been supporting all the resolutions so there was one for including first year standards of non-trad, and then we got the 287 Guardrail resolutions submitted. I wasn’t an author on it, but I do heavily support it and I think it’ll pass. I think that will be one of the best things we have done.
Q2: So I would hope that we start discussing more in committees and I would heavily push for that. I think, looking at this year once I and others kind of led that charge has been improved. Of course, and I would hope and I’m considering the bill I submitted earlier this year on speaking times, so that the Senate runs more efficiently in the first place. And of course, to address like freedom of speech, argument against it, it can be increased, but I think as a good practice, no one needs to speak over five minutes every single time. So my hope is that if I do put bills on the floor, it’ll be to improve efficiency on the floor. I’m working on a committee of the whole reformation policy that hopefully should have been very alleviate the hour and a half that we spent arguing over whether we wanted to do that this year. And so my hope is to look at all the various, procedures and questions to find ways that we can work more efficiently. I think that starts at the beginning of the Admin. And so hopefully next year, that won’t be an issue when we can start this discussions of committees so I want to do everything that I can to make Senate run more efficiently. Not spend as long as on internal bills. That’s why my practices talking to as many senators as possible before submitting bills has always been my policy or like internal discussion so that when bills get to the floor, they don’t take hours. I thought this past week when I had the story map to offer that was maybe a five minute discussion. So I think if myself and other senators take that approach, it absolutely help.
Q3: Definitely making me think now. Well of course, handling the Laramie winters, those are rough. But I think definitely like community and like connecting to other people. I think it’s important to really connect to other students and that’s been something I’ve tried to do this year. I think it’s really important that you have a community of people that you can talk to you even if you disagree with. And so I say community is one part of that. And then of course, like to the football game, but that falls under community. I’d say for the other part, that means putting your best foot forward and being prepared. Even if you’re walking to class, having not done the reading. Definitely putting your best foot forward. I don’t think that this university is or would be as great as it is if people didn’t put their best foot forward and try to be involved and talk to other people really huge. And so I’d say community and being prepared.
Rowan Kelly
Q1: Most of my priorities definitely include giving a voice to all voices on campus, whether that be international students, whether that be regular students, minority students, really just anybody that wants to know what’s going on with ASUW. I’d love to have an Instagram page where I post constant updates for people just to know exactly what’s going on and what things are going to affect them personally, but within those budgets, you know, things like budgets for clubs or budgets for parking, whatever it ends up being. I’d like to make sure that students are aware of what’s going on in student government.
Q2: Yeah. Obviously listening to all viewpoints and gaining consensus among all factions on an issue. Obviously, contentious things will come up and I think that keeping a calm demeanor and just realizing that everyone you know, grows up with different circumstances and thus has different perspectives on what they think is right, and that, we just need to find a compromise and a solution that works for everybody.
Q3: A Poke? Just the University of Wyoming, just has a resilient spirit and we are constantly reinventing ourselves and just pushing forward. And perseverance for all things even amongst adversity, obviously a lot of things have happened in the last few months, but our community always comes together whenever they matters. And it’s always great to see that and it’s great having a small student body as well because everyone gets really close. And so I think being a poke is just being a member of a very tight knit community. It’s really important. It makes people feel welcomed.
Artemis Langford
Q1: As far as legislation that I’ve written, I’ve been able to write and pass two transparency bills to make it easier for a standardized form of record keeping for committees. Since I think most of our work in ASUW is in committees. And most people don’t see that. Whether it because they don’t know that it’s actually happening. Or just the fact that some just don’t know and don’t pay attention, so I’m very proud to have that legislation to make sure that we’re more transparent and accessible to all students on campus. And then co sponsored and helped written a bunch of other legislation that, I’m very proud to work with colleagues and have some resolutions coming up. One is about trying to get rail transportation for passenger rail transportation, back to Laramie, and that should be coming out pretty soon. Very happy to have so much support from colleagues about that and I think from a lot of fellow students. And then other things I’ve done is helped with, because I remember budget and Planning Committee and the the tuition allocation and student fee review committee it’s so definitely on the finance side of ASUW in writing a budget and helping reduce student fees and really strongly advocating for making sure that our fees are responsible to our students and affordable asking for just enough to be able to continue our job as a student government and something that I hope to continue to do in the future.
Q2: I think the one thing is just speak if you have something to contribute, like really contribute to a debate and conversation. I think it’s very unfortunate that some people talk for the sake of talking or because they want their voice raised even though it’s kind of I’m trying to find the right word. Dilatory, maybe just contributing just more fluff, if you will. And I think that happens in most government bodies, and it’s a problem, you know, how do we best represent our constituents, but it’s not very efficient. And so I’ve definitely been in support of some measures. I haven’t supported all measures because I think there’s some legislation that for example, it gives more power to the chair. I’ve opposed that with certain colleagues because I felt that if there was an opposite situation or a hostile, Vice President Senate didn’t have good relations between that and the executive branch that would put undue influence on the Vice President to rule in a certain way. And I want to make things fair for all members of the Senate regardless of their views. And what I think is everyone deserves a level playing field to represent their voice and the voices of the people that they represent. But I think the best way to keep it efficient is just make sure that we’re ending on time and trying not to add any fluff. So I don’t know what the best way to do that is because I think we’ve been trying different methods with some success. And I look forward to trying to contribute that to the future.
Q3: I think to be a poke, is to be a very unique kind of person to be a student of the University of Wyoming. I think there are a lot of students here that shared commonality of enthusiasm for campus even though I think all of us have complaints or grievances, from time to time about certain aspects of how things are run around here. I think that’s a good thing. And I think every campus has that sort of and I’m certainly seeing more campuses, problems and others, but really to be a focus to be inspired and passionate. It is to be creative and have True Grit a sort of quiet courage because we are a family and I’ve seen, despite so many arguments and disagreements among different students for different reasons, we have always come together when it’s needed, like the passing of our fellow students. You know, showing up to their memorial service. Those kinds of things remind me why it’s special to be a poke.
Hayden Mackenzie
Q1: So I have three main priorities. My top one is actually addressing student needs. ASUW didn’t do a great job of using student needs to guide their initiatives this administration really, and so I really want to address the fact that ASUW is here to serve the student body and use that to do things like fight with administration over what the students actually want. My second priority is to emphasize the fact that ASUW is a bridge between students and administration. Administration doesn’t talk to the students, the students don’t talk to administration. And frankly, ASUW doesn’t talk to either of them. And I really want to address that because that’s what we should be doing. We should be advocating to administration on behalf of students, and we should be talking to students on what administration is doing. That’s our job. That’s why we have so many connections in both the students and administration. And then my third main thing that I want to do is I want to reorganize ASUW. So in the past ASUW ran off a college council model where a representative from each individual college was elected to serve on the ASUW Senate. I don’t want to go fully back to that. But I want to take every cylinder in ASUW and assign them to a college so for example, taking myself and assigning me to the College of Engineering. And there, that Senator should be building relationships with the faculty and the students there. They should be finding the problems in that college and they should be advocating based on that college’s individual problems. And I say that because ASUW has too wide of a focus right now. We’ve had resolutions that have hit the floor this semester that have died solely for the fact that they don’t address the needs of every single student. But that’s not how you solve problems. Even if it’s solving a problem that maybe only affects 10-15 people, solve that issue, but then solve 100 more of those. And now you’ve helped 1000 people. Addressing the needs of the individual college. And another benefit of the College Council model is that every single college has its own form of student government or staff government, or even just individual student organizations that are unique to that college. And there’s no reason that ASUW shouldn’t be partnering with those individual groups. Not only does that just general like outreach and cooperation on campus, but it also gives ASUW a lot more leverage when we’re talking to administration. Because now it’s not 30 some odd people saying this is what we want it is 30 some of our people plus say the College of Law or the college of business or whatever, it is a significantly larger population that is then going to administration saying this is what the students want.
Q2: I think a lot of our efficiency problem problems comes down to bad habits from the very beginning of the semester. And I think working to correct those very early on, leads to just the forming of better habits. Like for example, staying on topic, employing things like germane, things like that, where we have, in theory, the tools available to us already, to keep meetings efficient and effective. We just need to use them. And there’s also the whole thing of addressing things outside of the Senate chambers themselves, like addressing things in committee. And that’s something that first year Senate last year has been able to really effectively do. If you ever come to any of our first or Senate meetings, they’re like dead quiet. We don’t really talk about much because we’ve addressed all of our concerns outside of the chambers. Most people go in there knowing what they’re going to vote on every single bill and there is usually very little that changes people’s minds, because we’ve already talked about it and whether it be committee, whether it be just like interpersonal communication. So just Yeah, addressing things outside of the Senate chambers. And then when we’re in the Senate chambers, use those tools that we already have at our disposal to keep those meetings quick.
Q3: To me, to be a poke represents the culture in the University of Wyoming. So I am actually a third generation University of Wyoming student. My both my parents went here, my sister went here, my uncle went here. My grandmother went here. My family’s been here for a long time, and my family has also been in Wyoming for a long time. We’ve been ranching here for over 100 years. And so I think it’s really a grasp on the culture. Wyoming has such a unique perspective on the world, because we have such a small population and especially at the university we have such a diverse group of opinions. I would argue we are one of the most equally split universities in the nation. I believe it’s like I could be wrong in a statistic but I’m fairly certain it’s roughly 54% conservative, and 46% liberal on campus, which I mean, that’s like almost as even as it gets. And I think preserving that that freedom of being able to express ourselves because there is such a diverse group on campus. It can lead to a lot of really interesting conversations. Just about like the state of the world. And I think that’s the best part about being a poke because you can come here and you can there is a group for everybody on campus, conservative, liberal, whatever you identify as there is a group for you here. And those groups talk to each other. They communicate ideas. They argue about things and that is it’s a beautiful thing, it exemplifies what a university should be.
Cameron Moore
Q1: So I sponsored the bill, the highway bill that Senator Shliebe put forth and I thought that that was a really good one. I was very proud that the senate passed that unanimously at the Capitol last week. I also sponsored a bill that was giving first generation students non-traditional student access and provide more opportunities that I saw that some other senators worked on, and happily sponsored that. And then some of the other ones I want to work on which I plan on doing today is basically setting up an orientation service for transfer students to come to UW to help them integrate at UW. I’m a transfer student, or I was and I feel like coming into UW that’s something that the university could have done a little bit better for transfer students as having just a special transfer, orientation, nothing like major just for transfer students to help them get integrated and and that’s something they’ve been messaging people and I’m wanting to get the building blocks on that today. And then the other thing I’ve been working on and talking with people is the DIA to Laramie transportation bill. I was just talking about that with Paula and Jasmine through email. And I’m sponsoring that one. I’ve been talking with some international student clubs about that. That’s what I definitely want to keep working on and keep expanding. I think the building blocks right now are very good. And I would like to keep seeing that get built more and more into a safe ride type system.
Q2: One thing I think that is important is I think just simply getting to the point. One issue I’ve had with ASUW is that people will repeat stuff, constantly, all the time. And I think though if I have an opinion though, I am one of those people, I like to have my opinion heard. I also know that if people have already been saying what I think I don’t need to just like say that. So I think one thing that we can do is definitely like keep it on topic and definitely, I think just not be super repetitive. And I think just kind of when the arguments going rounds and rounds I think it’s good for me and other senators to encourage this and I’m trying to do this to try to punch the brakes and just move on to a different topic and just kind of get to the point like if we’re arguing and arguing and arguing, rounds and rounds, I think it’s good. One thing that I’ve been doing is I’ve been like telling people I’m like Alright, we’re ready to vote. Then I’ll put the green card out and vote and then we can try and move on and I will even sometimes say like hey
guys, let’s get going on this. That’s the main thing. I’m also I think just trying to like not be super partisan and just kind of work with everyone and just kind of stay above the drama and all that I think is a good way to promote efficiency. And that’s not just me, that’s just part of a bigger thing. But I think a lot of senators, including myself are growing kind of tired of that or want to see like more of a cultural change in ASUW and I think it’s actually been getting better. And I think that in the 112 administration that I think our continued efforts will definitely go a long way.
Q3: I think it really means one thing I really liked about Wyoming in particular is that we have such a strong sense of community and what I think it means is to have that cowboy spirit. Which isn’t necessarily wearing a hat and shoes. I think it’s mainly about being tough, being fair and just really getting along with people and being down to earth. One thing I’ve noticed, and I even noticed this when I was in DC on a lot of these East Coast schools, they don’t really have this sense of community and the down to earth, relatableness that we do here at Wyoming and that’s what it really means to me is just be a down to earth, fun, and just pragmatic person. I think that’s really what it means to me. That’s what I liked about the school so much and that’s why I’m staying for grad school.
Edwin Morales
Q1: My first priority is fiscal responsibility. I was elected treasurer in first year Senate. And I was a big help with BMP during the budget session, and we were really trying to focus on that fiscal responsibility part. And I want to continue that. Making sure that student fee dollars, because at the end of the day, we all pay them and we’ve got to make sure those student fee dollars are being used responsibly. And before our accountant retired, she gave me a lot of tips on how our policy works, and all that so I have some background on the financing, but I’m not an expert by any means, but I have some experience in that with me being treasurer and all. And so fiscal responsibility is my main thing. I think we also need to fund student orgs because student orgs are very important. I think that a lot of student orgs don’t realize what a giant recently have with sofb, Student organization funding board, and we really do need to advertise that a bit more. I do think that we also need to support our student orgs when they are with working with us in our policies, because I know that a lot of student orgs have gotten kind of messed up on our policy side of things. I just feel like we need to be more with them and more informed. I know I was in SOFB for about three months and we had some hiccups with people just making some errors and just not knowing what our policies are. So just kind of more communication on that, I think it’s also important. I want the next administration to be more outward reaching too I think that this administration has really been more inward facing we’re really focusing on our bylaws and our Constitution and it’s just, there hasn’t been that many resolutions about stuff that actually impacts campus like for example the resolution that we were up until two in the morning. But we need to do more of that kind of thing and we need to talk to students, get their opinions on these sorts of things and then cope with resolutions on their behalf.
Q2: What I will do is what I do as a delegate now. If a point that is already stated has been said, I will refrain from speaking. I’ve done that multiple times as a delegate where I have a point to say but somebody else made that point. I also think that in order to keep meetings more effective, we also need to work more in committees and I do like to discuss a lot in committees. I know in BMP and, I’m the chair of the T SOC committee for first year Senate and we really do have this destructive dialogue on the bills and negotiate the stuff that we’re doing. Because apart from actually getting bills, recommendations, and all that we also are doing the outreach part of it. So pretty soon we’re gonna table for the new student days. I’m getting all that set up. We’re really focusing on our Instagram and kind of getting our name out there to the new first year students get next year’s first year Senate much better, more visible experience than what we had coming in.
Q3: Okay, I love being a poke. I honestly could have had the chance to go to any university I wanted to. I have three full rides and could have ended up anywhere and I just decided this university because I’m a Wyoming native. I’ve always loved it here. I think being a poke is just having a sense of community and I think there’s no other sense of community on any other campus than you’ll get on this campus. We’re all really interconnected. We all at least know someone. Wyoming, I would say it’s like a big small town where you always know everyone in every community, even though it’s an entire state. I think this university amplifies that in that there’s a lot of diverse majors there’s a lot of diverse colleges and programs but at the end of the day, you will almost certainly know at least one person from each college or program and it’s that sense of community, that sense of belonging that I think it really means to be a poke. And I think that’s the beauty of this campus.
Reece Robertson
Q1: The three main priorities that I’m running on for my campaign right now are fiscal responsibility, reducing student fees and increasing parking. I think one of the main principles of any governmental body should be fiscal responsibility because every single government, entity, agency, body etc, runs off of tax money or in this case for the university, is student fee money, which I still think is a form of taxation. And I feel like too often we see a lot of governmental bodies, they don’t treat the money as theirs. I feel like the motto, if it’s something that you wouldn’t spend your money on, necessarily, you shouldn’t waste your money on that. I feel like the biggest example of this was the office move. That was a very controversial bill. And I showed up as a student to oppose that bill just as a normal student, because I feel like $230,000 out of an endowment on top of the other $200,000 that the union was spending. I think that a lot of them are wrong in saying that, well, it was out of the endowment and the other part was this union. That money still comes from students and taxpayers. It still comes from somewhere like the whole university is funded from money from other people. So I feel like that was just a very, the most recent incident of just kind of reckless spending and not actually being fiscally responsible. And I feel like the amount of student fees that we pay to go here is outrageous, especially when I don’t feel like we’re getting full benefit of the fees especially. And that’s intertwined with parking. Now, obviously, parking is an issue that’s not going to be solved immediately. I know that but feel like the disconnect between administration and the student body. Because there’s a lot of administrators that don’t think parking is an issue and it is now with the construction going on right now, do I understand that there’s gonna be some parking problems that are temporary? I get it but if we’re going to be paying, like $1500-2000- 3000 depending on some people like we’re paying an exorbitant amount of student fees. And that should all be going towards benefiting the students at least for the long term. And I just don’t see that as a big priority right now. We should be decreasing the amount of student fees in total. And if we are going to take the money that needs to directly benefit the students, none of this needs to be spent on ASUW.
Q2: I think one of the things that we’re definitely struggling with right now, and this is an issue that I’ve talked with, with a couple other like voters that are concerned about this, there’s been a lot of discussion around like capping meetings and like, how can we, you know, reduce the costs of students and I feel like the main problem that’s stemming from that is maybe more of a lack of communication and not utilizing parliamentary procedure, because I think the meeting that most people are talking about right now is the one that went into 2am. And if I remember correctly, the main issue from that is that they went outside of they already set their meeting agenda, and they went outside of their meeting agenda, which they’re not supposed to do. So it really technically at any point, one of the senators could have said, No, we’re done. I can’t remember what the action was, but they could have just stopped it at any time. Like, no, this is outside of the agenda. Like we already set the agenda. You can’t go back. So that was kind of just more of a parliamentary procedure fix. I feel like and are there going to be some moments where like a four or five hour long means necessary for very controversial or just bills that have a lot of substance and need a lot of discussion? Yes. But I feel like it’s more of a communication and just coordination part on the senators parts because really, you know, excluding some of those tiny circumstances where it’s going to be four or five hours, you should be able to get nice and decently timely manner. And again, like there’s always going to be the exceptions. You know, it’s just it’s government, but I think it’s more of a parliamentary procedure. And I don’t have the best knowledge of it either. None of us do. It takes it takes there’s a learning curve. And you know, it’s definitely something that everyone has to contribute to in order to actually make the meetings run smoothly.
Q3: It has a big meaning that’s heavily rooted in Wyoming and American values like grit, responsibility, the ability to persevere through difficult situations and a lot of our traditional values that were instilled during our nation’s founding – Declaration of Independence, constitution, Wyoming State Constitution, a lot of those traditional values and I feel like those should be present as being a part of the University of Wyoming. And that is another reason why I’m compelled to run for ASUW. I don’t think those values are adequately represented in ASUW. And that’s one of the main reasons why I’m running is I feel like those those values that we normally associate with like The Code of the West and our state principles and things like that are not heavily present in our current administration.
Calla Shosh
Q1: I have a couple of goals as a member of ASUW. I really want to try to see if something can be done to fix the parking equity issue on campus. Possibly looking into lowering rates; this is not a promise this is just something that I want to try to do. I also really want to try to increase accessibility on campus both fiscal accessibility, physical accessibility, and mental accessibility. There’s a lot of problems with that, particularly physical accessibility. From ice and broken ADA wheelchair operating door perspectives. And also from the fiscal side of it, where it seems the more you pay, the more you get.
And lastly, I want to try to make sure that everyone feels accepted and welcome on campus. I know that ASUW can have the opposite effect of that, and I want to try and combat that by making sure to reach out to different groups on campus, especially members of historically marginalized groups.
Q2: Most of the stuff I plan to do in full Senate is more outward facing. It’s less about helping redefine the full Senate and more about helping students with what they need. I want to be someone that students can feel like they can address issues or see that fall under things that are touched on as well as other issues. And I’d be like a touch point to help get those issues out to a full senate to help make sure we all can work on together.
Q3: I feel like to be honest, why Wyoming for me was scholarship packages, but to be a poke means understanding here that we’re all pokes. We’re all for Wyoming here. We’re all part of the UW and even though we may have a lot of different backgrounds, different cultures, all differences at the end of the day, we’re all humans. We’re all at UW for a reason. And we’re all students here and need to make sure we’re all respecting each other for that.
Eric Swingley
Q1: So I am running for ASUW because, I was just kind of upset with sort of how things were, you know, ASUW wasn’t quite meshing this past this past senate. And I was thinking, if the representation was not good enough, let’s go ahead and let’s try something else out, right. So I decided, alright, well, I’ll go ahead and pick up the, you know, the slack. And so, and so ultimately, that is what drove me to go to ASUW. One of my main pillars and a lot of my fellow candidates, is our fiscal accountability. I’d really like to see ASUW start saving money on behalf of the student body. We need to make sure that what we do spend is within our means. And so we’re not you know, overspending or outspending. And really ideally I’d like to get our spending down so we can actually reduce student fees which would be fantastic. Because I know as certainly, you know, state folks and out of state folks, you know, we really like saying, you know, the less we can pay for school, the better off we all are, you know, and it certainly it certainly makes a difference. You know, it’s the difference between me going to CSU and me going to University of Wyoming and 10 out of 10 times I’d rather come up here. Also a big one is you know, free speech. Free speech has been thrown around a lot lately and and certainly my fellow candidates, they also believe in free speech to but what does that mean to all of us, right? And ideally, I’d really like to see, us talk about the tough stuff, right? Saying the stuff that needs to be said without having repercussions against ourselves. Because if we have to, you know, tiptoe around an issue if we have to, figure out how much we can say about an issue and not actually get to the point of what needs to be said, then, we’re not doing our jobs well. And ultimately, the school is a community where we all have diverse thoughts, and we all bring our thoughts together into this one organization, this one cohesive unit, and we all disseminate that information, and we all learn from it. And that’s ultimately what we need to be doing. That is a major focus. And also parking. Parking is a big issue, and I really like to see the school actually come out with an answer, right? Between construction between, they’re starting to remove parking spaces or trying to reclassify parking spaces. I think I think we need to start asking questions, you know, okay. Well, whatever our options, we don’t have options. All right, let’s go to the city. Let’s try to find some options, right? You know, if we can figure out how to lease land if we can figure out how to compensate the city for parking spaces. I’d be more than happy to start talking.That’s my biggest priority. Because, you know, you got folks, commuting from Cheyenne, you’ve got, folks in town that need a parking space and it’s like, alright, well, you don’t get one then you’re kind of screwed, right? in more polite terms.
Q2: So we’ll we’ll go ahead and start saying this, if I agree with a person, I’m not gonna get up there and I’m not gonna, say oh, just to reiterate–. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s my time and it’s their time let’s go ahead and respect each other’s time. If we can get it done in two and a half, three hours, that’d be fantastic. I definitely won’t be be beating around the bush I definitely won’t be I won’t be messing around with what, personally what I have to say. What I have to say will be put through legislation. That’s, if I have something to say it’s going to be in writing and it’s going to be a bill that’s going to be discussed. And whatever’s in there is in there and I don’t need to take up other folks time. If I can write it down and I can get it through ASUW. That goes great. If it dies, that’s fine. But my thoughts were there.
Q3: I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the greatest educational institution in the entire United States. The University of Wyoming is, the greatest school I could have ever ended up at. What it means to be a poke is, we have a unique reality. First, it’s a bunch of folks that just want to get together and they want to work. And as a poke, you also need to develop your community. Whether it’s, I go back to Colorado Springs and I live the poke values right. It’s a very big important thing. As a Wyoming cowboy as a poke. There’s integrity, there’s just a myriad of values, integrity, graciousness, kindness, grace, and a particular sense of unity within the community. That, really, that means a lot to me.
Brandon Veach
Q1: So my biggest goal as a senator is generally Wyoming values for Wyoming students. I’m very much pushing fiscal responsibility and freedom of expression on campus. As I feel that it’s important for everybody to be able to express themselves openly without fear of being cracked down on and as a conservative gentleman myself, I mean, I faced a lot of discrimination on campus. So that’s a big thing I’m pushing is just everybody being able to speak their mind freely. I’m a big proponent for the well of knowledge concept, which basically states that all information should be available to everybody. And it should be up to the individual to decide what they want to and want not to believe. So with that, I’m going to push for institutional neutrality. I don’t think that the university should be able to take a political side and really any matter. Things along those lines. I actively went and spoke out against the office move. Yeah, when it happened. I was actually quoted in your guyses paper for that. So that’s another big leg of my hope and my candidacy is fiscal responsibility. I don’t think that as a representative you should be able to spend $430,000 on yourself. And I went and openly spoke out against that and I will continue to fight against that in every facet that I can. I think that largely the funds allocated to ASUW need to go back to the student body as ASUW’s job. And then I push for complete transparency. I want to be able to go to different clubs, that I’m not personally a part of and say, Hey, these are the issues. What do you guys think of them? I’m just trying to get a general feel from the student body themselves. And then just push constructive dialogue on campus. I mean, that’s a big thing for me. [There was a discussion held] between students for life and students for choice [this semester]. I think that ASUW should hold events like that. Where ASUW holds neutrality, but lets other organizations on campus debate and have constructive dialogue. That goes back to that well of knowledge concept. Truly engaging with the student body is another big one for me. Going out talking, hosting events, things along those lines. That’s huge for me, and generally putting the student body first before anybody in as UW is massive for me.
Q2: So I feel that everybody should have a chance to give their peacce, but I think that staying on topic is important. I understand if there’s issues that need to be discussed, but at the end of the day, we’re there to do a job. It’s not we’re not there to gossip. And so keeping on task and keeping the student body in mind is my biggest thing.
Q3: So being from Wyoming, being a cowboy has kind of always been a dream of mine. You know, you grow up in this state and you see the university and I think every student growing up, wants to go here. And so it’s almost like a dream come true to be able to go to school here to be able to represent my state the way that we do and to just be a part of the Wyoming family.
Kailee Verdeyen
Q1: So I’m building my campaign off of “Unite, Empower and Acknowledge.” My main priorities are going to be FSL (Fraternity and Sorority) life; trying to make that bigger, connecting them with the rest of campus. [My second priority is] first generation students. I’m a first generation student. There’s a lot of resources for us, but also not. I’ve been talking to Cole Shliebe, who’s also running. He is working on adding first generation students to non traditional so I’ve been really talking to him about that and really interested in it. Working with residents like a lot, I don’t really appreciate how they treat freshmen that are trying to get out of the dorms. I needed to get out and it was a four month fight. So seeing if there is something that we could do with them to kind of acknowledge that the door I’m certainly not the best situation for everybody. Also, dietary needs within Washakie, and the union. It’s not a personal thing that I have issues with, but I’ve heard a lot of people talk about lactose intolerance, gluten free and a lot of other dietary needs that aren’t in Washakie. So these people deserve to eat. Ifhey can’t eat, why should they have to pay for it? I just kind of like a lot of ideas. I’d really like to help the culture within ASUW as well with recognizing that everybody has to speak, but it’s still a good idea to listen to them and hear them out. So I have very strong views and opinions myself, but [I talk to others and hear them out].
Q2: Listening and not repeating. There’s so many times in those meetings where somebody says something, and the next person to speak just repeats the exact same thing with different wording. And then also on top of that, instead of listening and trying to come to a similar agreement on things, it’s just constant back and forth, and nobody really listens to the other side. Those meetings drive me nuts.
Q3: This has actually been my dream school. And when I tell people that I get so many weird looks, but it was either I didn’t go to college or I came here. For some reason, like it just always felt like it would be a family and united. And it truly has felt like that. I mean, I live by CSU and I’ve never had any desire to go there. And I got so many scholarships from them, too. I just really I liked the environment and all of the involvement that the school and I was and the small community, like you know, we go out for summer and like the town is actually sad that we’re gone. You know, CSU, they get out for summer and everyone is so excited that they’re gone. So I just really liked the environment and like all the people and like even though I feel like some people look at the school and expect certain like views and certain kind of people like I feel like it is starting to become more diverse with different views about it.
- Taylor Corkern – NO INTERVIEW
- Calvin Fertig III – NO INTERVIEW
- Gweneth Hargett – NO INTERVIEW
- Grace Kimmel – NO INTERVIEW
- Carson Krueger – NO INTERVIEW
- Davis Puckett -NO INTERVIEW
- Maya Worcester – NO INTERVIEW
