Election week? For the uninformed, last week marked the student faculty committee Senate races which had dismal voting turnout.

Six of the seven student positions on various faculty committees were filled last Wednesday, but only one person ran opposed. Only about 450 students voted, and "that's a generous estimate," according to senior Jen Schnell, who counted the ballots.

Katie Anderson, '03, this years' Athletic Board Senator and newly elected International, Domestic, and Off Campus Studies Senator, was the winner of the opposed race. She pulled ahead of Brian Tharpe by approximately 84 votes. Anderson wanted to continue her involvement in Senate because of her positive experience this year.

As a part of the IDOCS, Katie will get the chance to make the same opportunity available to more students. She will work with the different program advisors and financial aid representatives at Manitou Cottage to review, consider, and promote courses, plans, and policies relating to off-campus academic programs.

Tharpe said that he was disappointed that he lost, but is still planning on being involved with Senate throughout the next year. He said, "I was on hall council and proxy for Senate my freshman and sophomore years, but was off campus first semester on Global and so was unable to run for a position this year."

Tharpe feels that there was such a poor voter turnout "for three reasons: one, poor publicity. Two, there was only one contested race. And three, most people just don't care, let alone know the issues." Anderson concurred: "Part of the problem is that no one knew... there wasn't much publicity, probably because there was only one position opposed," adding, "there was also those people selling cookies for the chimpanzee thing." The cookie sales took place in the normal election table spot, pushing ballots back into the shadow of the stairs leading up to the third floor of Buntrock Commons.

"[Senators] can't really advertise what they do... they're not in the spotlight like the PAC director or Pause manager," said SGA President Nick Wallace, acknowledging the publicity problem by saying. "You don't see them all the time."

Another problem, he said, is that "FC [Faculty Committee] Senators don't get the credit they deserve. They provide an important service; they meet directly with the faculty committees that meet once a week on which programs should be implemented. The groundwork for [these programs] is laid in those meetings. They look for student input on the different ideas." The students also attend Senate every week to update the group on what their respective committees are discussing.

The group of new senators consists of Jen Ison for Athletic Board, Dave Marotz for Review and Planning Committe, Ellen Osthus for Curriculumand Educational Policies Committee, James Christopherson for Media Board, and Niels Knutson for General Education Committee. All but Ison and Knutson were involved last year, and cited their enjoyment of being involved as their main reason for running. Each had their own opinion as to why they were unopposed.

Ison laughed and said, "Apparently my class doesn't like to do stuff."