Joe Hooper
Features editor
jhooper5@jccc.edu
Student Senate President-elect Alex Rowe will be taking office in the fall semester after winning the election in early April.
Rowe, an entrepreneurship student at the college and Shawnee Mission South alumnus, formerly served as a senator-at-large and currently serves a parliamentarian in the Student Senate. Having never participated in student government during high school, Rower discovered his passion for Student Senate through a stroke of serendipity.
“The reason I joined was I just had a class cancelled and I saw a poster in the hallway, which isn’t anything too great or flashy,” Rowe said.
After attending that first Student Senate meeting, Rowe fell in love with the group. He began his work with the Senate as a senator-at-large before becoming the Parliamentarian this semester.
“After I started getting involved, I really, really have enjoyed it,” Rowe said. “It doesn’t feel like a chore for me so much. It doesn’t feel like ‘Oh, it’s noon, I have to go to my Senate meeting.’ It’s been really great because of the people there.”
As president, Rowe said he hopes to close the gap between student groups at the college and incentivize togetherness by offering an award to groups that go above and beyond to be inclusive.
“We’re trying to encourage clubs to sort of interact and intermingle,” Rowe said. “The more they do that, the more points they’re [going to] earn, and with that they can win the spirit award.”
Along with encouraging clubs around campus to interact, Rowe said one of the major issues the Student Senate is hoping to tackle in the coming semester is opening the dialogue on diversity and inclusion on campus. Rowe said the current Student Senate president, Donny Whitton, has been looking to organize an event with the administration to address what Rowe said has been a recurring issue across campus.
Finally, Rowe said the Senate is hoping to institute a break space where students can rest on campus safely without obstructing others.
“Right now we have a lot of people, sometimes they try to sleep in the library or they try to sleep in the hall, so it’s a bit disruptive,” Rowe said. “We want to sort of have a designated space where people are able to do that.”
Students interested in attending Student Senate meetings can do so from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. every Monday in RC 270.