Landon Stevens/The Siskiyou
Monique Teal and Elizabeth Tafeen were elected as the new ASSOU president and vice president as well as new senate members.

After a reportedly excellent voter turnout, the Associated Students of Southern Oregon University spring elections culminated with the voting in of nine new senators and Monique Teal and Elizabeth “Liz” Tafeen as the 2007-2008 president and executive vice president.

“Having Monique and Liz is a phenomenal 1-2 punch,” said Brian Greig, 2006-2007 student president. “I’m very confident in leaving that they will do a phenomenal job,” he said, adding that everything they do will benefit students in the most positive ways.

Greig described Teal as extremely knowledgeable of local issues and “so passionate for advocating for students.”

“She understands the importance of higher education,” said Greig. “Students are very lucky to have someone such as her in such a professional and knowledgeable position.”

He added that, “Liz will bring a very exciting outlook on things with her responsibility as vice president. She is very passionate and hard-working, and will make herself visible to the student body.”

“Monique and Liz will do an excellent job on a local level working with Southern Oregon and the Ashland community, as well as at the state level in order to support higher education and students as a whole,” said Jake Purcell, elections chair and current at-large senator.

“The president and vice president do so much in leadership,” said Greig. “ASSOU strives so hard to represent the student body the best they can.”

“Mostly we want to focus on student empowerment and making sure their voices are heard,” said Teal. Teal and Tafeen said they are interested in having many student voices in every aspect on the SOU campus.

Teal and Tafeen have plans and changes for SOU in the coming year.

“The main thing is we want to restructure and reorganize the fee process and committee,” said Tafeen. One goal is to form a student committee to talk about what the students want to see done and how the process can be improved.

Their plans include creating a safe-ride program so students who hit the town can get home safely; requiring all mandatory textbooks in the Hannon Library; providing early access to class syllabi; and supporting the sustainability council efforts, which advocates green energy sources. Other issues from their platform include keeping tuition low, increasing financial aid and improving academic integrity.

Teal has served as the director of governmental affairs, and as a member of the Oregon Student Association Executive Cabinet. Tafeen is new to ASSOU, but has worked in student government in the past.

This year Teal led a team of senators and learned how to manage a staff. Her work at ASSOU this past year taught her how to be a politician and the leadership experience built upon her existing foundation.

Teal hopes to continue Leadership Development, which involves mentoring students to become better leaders and making sure they have an understanding and knowledge of issues.

“This creates a leadership legacy to see that the next generation of students is prepared to lead SOU,” said Tafeen.

The newly elected officials will be sworn in and take over their new positions at the ASSOU Senate meeting on Tuesday, May 8, at 6 p.m., in Stevenson Union room 313.

In addition to the new president and vice president, the 2007-2008 senate seats will be filled by the following: Ray Cooley, Nicholas Hasse, Kelli Horvath and Matt Lake, at-large; Anu Lawrence, educational activities; Dana Baker, school of business; Megan Thomas, school of science; Drew Brammer, arts and letters; and Nicole Jolly, Stevenson Union.

“All senators are very motivated individuals and will put high priority on representing the students,” said Purcell. “I’m looking forward to seeing what they will do next year as new senators. I think the election went really well. We had an excellent voter turnout this year.”

Brook Colley, ASSOU director of communications, was pleased that so many people were interested in this election and to see such an energetic race between the two candidate teams.

“There was a lot of respectful interaction between the two teams,” said Colley. “I’ll be excited to see what this team can do next year.”

Any additional questions should be directed to the elections committee chair at purcellj@students.sou.edu. Anyone interested in getting involved with the ASSOU Senate or the Executive Cabinet is asked to call 552-6655 or e-mail the Senate Pro-tem at youngni@students.sou.edu .