In April, then-North Dakota State student body vice presidential candidate Anuj Teotia said that he had not been home to India in 20 months. Teotia and his running mate Spencer Moir would stay through the summer to work toward accomplishing platform points should they be elected student body president and vice president.
The two did win student body president and vice president, respectively, and spent the offseason working.
Moir and Teotia
“The main thing was just getting started on our platform points,” Moir said.
To start, Moir and Teotia met with the “key players” in the Student Fee Advisory Board to make sure they understood the guidelines. SFAB will be meeting again in September or October to review guidelines once again to ensure all involved feel they have fair representation as for why they’re increasing their fees.
Moir and Teotia are also debuting Follow-Up Fridays by using a new listserv email format, a change that will continue if feedback is positive.
Teotia said student government outreach will be an issue for student senators, with the NDSU student senate having five senior senators for the year.
Over the summer, Moir attended the State Board of Higher Education meeting in Bismarck, with Teotia attending a special session the first week of August.
The new advising resource center in Morill Hall began phasing out from focusing on university studies and into a meta-major program. Moir has also been in contact with the student body presidents of Minnesota State University-Moorhead and Concordia College to develop a better Tri-College partnership than past years have had.
Moir and Teotia gave multiple orientation presentations with emphasis on the importance of getting involved. The pair is planning on speaking at several University 189 courses.
In the coming weeks, surveys will be sent to students attempting to gauge how students feel about extended dining hours and study space accessibility. The pair has met with Mike Ellingson and Darren Peterson, directors of facilities management and dining services, respectively, to discuss changing building operation hours.
Teotia has also been working with student senate vice chair Brendan Curran to fill around nine open seats with “really great senators.”
The pair will be continuing the peer mentoring program started by former student body president and vice president Eric McDaniel and Josh Fergel, respectively, which will “roll out sometime soon.”
Moir also said that students should approach student government, as student government can only do its job if it gets feedback, complaints, criticisms and questions from students.
Executive team
Moir and Teotia are making use of their executive team, too, with the finance commissioners finishing up the previous fiscal year in July.
Katie Mastell and Kim Ellwein, executive and assistant executive commissioners for external affairs, respectively, have been meeting with several SBHE members and state legislators to build connections on behalf of NDSU.
Mathew Warsocki and Courtney Karnopp, executive and assistant executive commissioners of the congress for student organizations, respectively, have been advising service requirements for organizations and creating new guidelines for the CSO, which will be up for student senate’s approval in September.
Lauren Algyer, executive commission of academic and student affairs, has been working toward organizing events such as a family day.
Nick Reitan, student government public relations director, has been working to focus on the core platform idea of making student government approachable, doing things such as ordering window vinyls to create a more welcoming approach to the student government office.