liermanm2@lopers.unk.edu

For its second meeting of the semester, the Associated Students of the University of Nebraska met last week to continue election preparations. Student senators agreed to extend the deadline for election registration to Feb 16.

The move comes in the wake of personnel changes in the Office of Student Engagement, the university office responsible for advising the student body government.

“Thankfully we do have a lot of people around us who are quick on their feet and have a lot of great ideas that stepped up to the plate,” said Noah Limbach, Student Body President. “We made a couple changes and moved deadlines around, but elections are going to go on just as they usually do.”

The student body government confirmed and swore in Kali Herbolsheimer as Election Commissioner. Herbolsheimer, who works in the Student Engagement office, was approved by the Rules and Ethics Committee and is seeking to further engage students in the election process.

Beyond election preparations, the student government carried on its regular activities.

“A big part that student government is always doing is approving student organizations and reapproving them with their constitution,” said Landon Seibert, Speaker of the Student Senate. “A lot of stuff like that is really just kind of starting to wrap up this year to end this term so whoever comes in afterwards can start with all cylinders firing.”

The Selections and Constitutional Review committee met with five student organizations to review their constitutions and submitted plans to bring seven constitutions to the Joint Senate at its next meeting.

The Facilities and Campus Development committee assigned student senators to a variety of organizations. The student senators will be tasked with reaching out to the organizations to gauge their interest in participating in the Campus Adoption Project later this semester.

In addition to Herbolsheimer’s confirmation, Tanner Butler was confirmed and sworn in to serve as the Chief Justice of the UNK Student Court after review by the Rules and Ethics Committee.

With election season drawing closer, student representatives are encouraging more students to get involved.

“There’s a lot that goes on that we do that is public knowledge, but sometimes it just isn’t really out there,” Seibert said. “I think that truly, if students wanted to know what’s going on more — even if they have any comments or concerns — it’s not like we lock the door and say nobody can come. If they really want to get in the loop and voice their opinions, I highly, highly suggest attending a meeting.”

The student body government meets every at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the Antelope Room in the Nebraskan Student Union. Public comment is open to all students at the beginning of every meeting.

“Anybody’s welcome, and we can’t stress that enough,” Limbach said. “What we really want to do is hear from everybody on campus, so we want those Greek students, we want students from ODI, we want students from all different colleges and all different interests. At the end of the day, I think we really want to diversify and have as much variety within the Student Senate as we can.”