The Associated Students of Madison Student Council elected Andrew Bulovsky to its vice chair position in its first meeting of the semester Wednesday.
Bulovsky, who ran against Rep. Olivia Wick-Bander, was elected in a 13-12 vote.
Bulovsky said as vice chair he plans to work toward a “united front” within student council and promote collaboration among ASM committees working on similar campaigns.
“Our grass roots committees are some of the most important work that’s done and I plan to support every single one,” Bulovsky said.
Rep. Cale Plamann said he supports Bulovsky because he has proved his willingness to reach compromise amidst disagreement.
“I’ve seen Andrew work with people,” Plamann said. “I’ve seen Andrew come to a compromise and work with people he’s disagreed with towards a general set of goals.”
Council also appointed Former ASM Vice Chair Beth Huang to chair the Shared Governance Committee.
Huang, who was removed from her position as vice chair in September after the Student Judiciary ruled she had not submitted required service hours on time, said as committee chair she would work to ensure members on the committee are fully trained.
“My goal will be to ensure that when we send our appointees to meet with staff and faculty, we send the best student advocates possible,” said Huang. “Not because we’ve picked the best people, but because we’ve also trained the best people.”
Reps. Tom Sannito and Maria Giannopolous were also appointed to serve on the Nominations Board.
ASM Chair Allie Gardner said the new appointments will help ASM get more work done.
“Starting the semester off with a completely full set of leadership and appointments to committees and boards is just going to be extremely helpful because we have more hands, more people working,” said Gardner.
Council also officially removed Rep. Johnny Koremenos because he had missed too many council meetings. There are now four vacant seats in the College of Letters and Science.
Also at the meeting, Legislative Affairs Chair Hannah Somers deputized student council representatives, officially authorizing them to register voters.
“We do have obviously a huge push for voter registration coming up in the next couple of weeks and we want to focus on making sure students know all the changes with voter registration,” Gardner said at a press conference earlier Wednesday.
ASM chair: fewer meetings improve reps. turnout
At a press conference Wednesday, Associated Students of Madison Chair Allie Gardner said having student council meet every other week as opposed to every week has worked out well thus far.
Coordinating Council, the board of the chairs of the various chairs of ASM committees, saw an increased turnout of ASM representatives at its meeting last Wednesday since representatives did not have a student council meeting, Gardner said.
“It’s helpful to have a coordinated discussion of what’s coming up in student council and how that’s going to effect the chairs,” Gardner said.
Also since representatives now have more time with student council meeting every other week, Gardner said Rep. Mia Akers proposed student council representatives have “outreach hours,” where they meet with student groups.
Gardner also said ASM is working on it’s Student Workers’ Rights Campaign, which was designed to improve hourly student workers’ working conditions and pay.
In addition to its initial goals, Gardner said the campaign is evolving to help teach student workers how to deal with issues they face working on campus.
