Coming off a “struggle” during the 2004-05 school year, Student Senate is looking at improvements with campus involvement in voting.

In the recent election for the new Senate officers, 200 students came out to vote, accounting for three percent of the student population.

Adam Griffin, Student Senate adviser, said this is a major improvement from the previous school year.

“At least we had an election,” Griffin said. “Last year we only had one candidate running for each office.”

This year, there were two candidates running for president and two running for vice-president.

“Senate was great this year, we had constant membership to almost full capacity through the whole year,” said Eric Norris, outgoing Senate president. “Compared to last year, the attendance improvements were great.”

Griffin said the low percentage of student votes for Senate is much like the support for anything else on campus. He said students tend not to pay much attention to organizations or groups in which they are not involved.

“Usually the people that vote have been on Senate or have friends on Senate,” Griffin said. “They usually have an idea of who they want to see in there, who the people are and what they’ve done in Senate.”

Students on campus have different opinions as to why they do not vote in the Senate elections.

Carol Silvey, sophomore history major, said she does not care for “campus politics.”

“It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” Silvey said. “I don’t know anything about Student Senate.”

“I don’t think that they do anything,” said Kaylie Roy, freshman theatre major.

Roy said Senate should be “more public” about the role it plays on campus to increase interest and participation.

Like many other students, she too sees Senate as a means of funds for other organizations. While Roy did vote in the recent elections, a friend of hers being one of the candidates was the cause.

For other students, giving Senate a second thought is just not a priority.

“I have more important things to be concerned about right now,” said Akeema Johnson, sophomore nursing major.

Andrew Jecmen, junior biology major, said while he is not “intrigued” by politics, he would consider coming out to a Senate meeting if he felt it would benefit him.

“It’s a case-by-case basis,” Jecmen said.

If the people don’t know who’s running and don’t know who’s best it really doesn’t matter if they vote or not,” Griffin said. “They’re just throwing a name in the hat if they don’t know what’s going on.”

Constance Everitt, Southern alumni and former Senate member, said students look to Senate for the benefits of their own organizations.

“The only people that really get interested in what’s going on with Student Senate is the ones that are in a club that want to go and ask for money,” Everitt said.

Griffin said while Senate does allocate funds for group and organization trips, conferences and contests, that is not the complete purpose of Senate’s existence.

“If I was a student organization, I would want at least one of my members on Student Senate,” Griffin said. “If you’re there every week, learn what the Senate wants to hear. When the Senate knows you, you’ll have a better rapport with them, and you’ll be able to tell them what your group is all about.”

Griffin said the executive officers this summer are going to try to come up with ways to promote Senate to get the word out and to get students more interested.

“We try not to really recruit really hard, because we don’t want to persuade anyone to come out for Senate,” Norris said.

Norris said if people feel pressured to be a part of something, they will stay for the wrong reasons.

“I’d rather have quality instead of quantity,” he said. “It’s better to have 200 people vote that want to vote and actually care than to have 500 people come out and vote for the heck of it.”

Griffin said while this was a better year for Senate, it will take time to change more students’ attitudes on campus about Senate.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand how powerful Senate can be,” Norris said. “Through Senate we have a direct connection to the governing board of this university. So, for their needs to be met or changes to take place at this university from a student standpoint, Senate is the avenue to go to get those changes to take place.”