“This senate is ambitious,” says new Student Senate co-president Marcus Schmit about the group of student representatives he and fellow co-president Mike Cavallaro will lead for the coming year. “They’re ready to be more proactive.”
Cavallaro and Schmit were elected in February from among three presidential tickets vying for the challenge of representing and guiding the student community at Gustavus Adolphus College. In an election that drew one of the highest voter turnouts in recent years, they captured 46.5 percent of the vote; the other two presidential tickets garnered 28.5 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Cavallaro and Schmit assumed their new duties on February 21 and will hold office through February of 2006.
The new co-presidents inherit what they call a “young senate,” but one that is nevertheless experienced, with just five new members. Cavallaro recalls that more than 20 new members were seated following elections last year. “This year, we won’t have to spend a lot of time early on learning parliamentary procedure and how to run a meeting,” he says, “and can get right into some things we laid groundwork for during the previous administration.”
Cavallaro, a sophomore from North St. Paul, Minn., is a management and pre-law major at the College whose interests in facilitating and delegating led him to seek the Senate presidency in the first place. He got involved in student governance in his first year at Gustavus, as a freshman representative, and continued his involvement during the past semester as a hall rep for Wahlstrom Hall. A member of the Gustie varsity football team, he has also volunteered with ESL programs in the St. Peter schools.
Schmit, also a sophomore, is an economics major hailing from Red Wing, Minn. He was first elected to the Student Senate this past fall as a hall rep for North Hall. While active in the College’s intramurals program, he counts volunteering at the local grade school as perhaps his most significant extracurricular activity. His decision to run for the senate’s top post stems from a desire to assume some “ownership in the community.”
Schmit and Cavallaro campaigned on a platform of communication and collaboration. Cavallaro says, “We sense that, while communication within each of the various groups in our community is decent, communication among the faculty, administration, and students regarding student interests and issues could be improved. There’s even some division and isolation among student groups.” To that end, they’re pushing an active marketing plan that includes maintaining a regular space in the College’s newspaper to use as a forum to communicate student issues and announce senate actions and community activities organized or endorsed by the senate.
Schmit adds, “The senate tends to be seen as a funding source that responds to requests so that various groups can produce their own activities. We’d like to promote collaboration among those groups, suggesting that they might pool financial resources to stage bigger events, which might build excitement to attract larger audiences from all segments of our community.” They hope the senate can model that idea by coordinating a major concert or event on the campus next fall.
The two new senate leaders view their role in a continuum, building on the work of previous senate presidents. “It’s important to understand the College’s traditions even while we move ahead,” Cavallaro maintains. They both agree that their goal is “not just saying but creating community.”
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