Alyssa Loveless will serve as Undergraduate Student Congress chairwoman for the 2011-2012 school year after being elected Tuesday night.
Loveless competed against Sean Bender and Steve Sichterman for the position and won with a total of 16 votes. Bender received 8 votes, and Sichterman received 7 votes.
Loveless ran on a campaign of “Putting the student back in Student Congress!” and said she wants to reach out to students by filling the 11 empty Congress seats, communicating with The Daily and involving all representatives in meetings by teaching them proper procedures.
“We are elected to represent [students], but most don’t know what Student Congress is or what we do,” Loveless said during her speech to Congress. “We need to reach out to students to get their input and connect student organizations to their representatives. We need to find students that want to be involved so can have a full 48 members.”
Loveless was Congress secretary for the past year and has helped organize the UOSA Big Event teams and “Adopt a Child” project with The Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center, she said. Also, she organized “An Evening with UOSA” in March so students could meet candidates, discuss ideas and learn about UOSA.
Representative Eric Lyle nominated Loveless, saying her heart and passion for UOSA inspired him.
“She’s always willing to have coffee with you,” Lyle said. “Even if she doesn’t win, I know she is always willing to have you come and talk to her, send her a text, send her a Facebook message, send her an email.”
Over the summer, Loveless said she will start working to improve Congress by taking a class on Robert’s Rules of Orders, the procedures that govern how meetings are conducted, she said. This way, Loveless said she can become an expert on the procedures herself and teach them to members.
By doing this, Congress members will know how to speak in Congress and will be more willing to participate in discussion, she said. Loveless also said she wants to have laminated, reusable cheat sheets of procedure at each meeting.
During the question-and-answers session two Congress members had specific questions for Loveless. One representative asked why certain Congressional members had not been expelled for lack of attendance. Loveless said she handled these situations on a one-on-one basis with those representatives.
Rep. Shayna Daitch asked Loveless about a meeting that had been canceled at 10:35 p.m. the night before the meeting was scheduled to take place in September, asking why there were no agendas present even though the meeting did not happen. Loveless said this situation took place during a confusing period after the electrical fire in the Conoco Student Leadership Center in the Oklahoma Memorial Union and there was no place available to post the agenda.
Former chair Brett Stidham addressed the Congress before handing over his gavel, passing on his advice to each of the representatives.
“The point is that through all of this, I’ve seen you branch out,” Stidham said. “Through branching out you learn something about yourself, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbors. Through branching you learn something about OU.”
Kelbie Kennedy was elected as vice chair after a vote of 21 to 9, defeating David Pierce.
Aaron White will serve as secretary after a vote of 18 to 10, defeating Shayna Daitch.
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blakegriffin 1 year, 1 month ago
She must have raised more money than the others to win by such a large number.