Issue date: 3/19/04 Section: News

Media Credit: Alex Steffler Sophomore Amy Hillard beams after hearing the news that she has been elected Senate President.

The glow on sophomore Amy Hillard's face was apparent to everybody in the Mills Library March 9 when Dane Charles, former Election Commissioner and junior, announced her election as Student Senate president.

Hillard won the election after three rounds of vote counting. Charles explained that the number of votes a candidate received from each voter's first choice was tallied, but that it took three rounds of elimination before Hillard received a majority of the votes.

Hillard received 54.71 percent of the final votes, or 273 out of 499 valid ballots. Junior Kathy Woerner, her closest challenger, lost with 45.29 percent. The third candidate, sophomore Debi Dewar, was eliminated in the second round of voting with 92 total votes.

"I'm shocked," Hillard said after the results were announced. "I'm really excited as well, and I'm so glad campaigning is over. It was a long process."

Noting that she hopes to double major in psychology and social justice, pending approval of that as an interdisciplinary major, Hillard said she plans to continue her education after Hendrix either with graduate school, law school or the Teach for America program.

On why she was elected, Hillard said it was because students identified more with the views she proposed during her campaign than the views of her opponents.

"I would say that Kathy and I envisioned different views of Senate," Hillard said. "I hope that's what students voted on." She mentioned her general goal of making Senate committees and student organizations more independent from Senate as well as trying to increase the student activity fee.

In the next few weeks, Hillard said she and her cabinet would like to form a cafeteria committee to give Dining Services staff a chance to run ideas - like Burrow changes or offering Starbucks products - by students before they are implemented.

And eventually, Hillard said, she hopes this Senate is able to give students the ability to set the activity fee themselves but also pointed out that this would require a change to the College's by-laws and therefore would probably be a very long-term task involving multiple levels of the College.

Continued...

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