New Student Senate leaders named for 2024-25 school year

Concordia University, Nebraska recently announced its upcoming Student Senate leadership team, which will take over the governance of the club in the 2024-25 school year.  

Student Senate is Concordia’s student government. The Senate is student-led and holds weekly meetings. Smaller committees devoted to areas of betterment across campus, such as recycling, community service and public relations, meet once every two weeks. Each main Student Senate meeting is open to the public; however, each dorm floor and club is asked to send a representative to these meetings.  

Each year, Student Senate takes on a variety of campus-focused projects, with the main project for the 2023-24 school year being the renovation of Concordia’s outdoor chapel. They also play an integral role in the creation of yearly budgets for each of Concordia’s approved clubs. The budget for the upcoming school year is created at the end of the prior semester.  

This year’s Senate president is senior Aaron Fosse of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He has served the Senate since the beginning of the 2023-24 school year and now relinquishes his duties to the newly elected president. The recent election, a contested race between current juniors Joshua Burmeister of Wykoff, Minnesota, and Aarin Dean of Fort Dodge, Iowa, led to Burmeister being elected. Concordia students were able to vote via Google Forms between April 9-15, 2024.  

"[Aarin] Dean and I mostly did it for fun,” said Burmeister regarding the contest between him and Dean. “Either one of us would have been willing to serve, but...I’m glad I won, not because I think I’m better or that I deserve it, but because Dean is far busier than I. He has multiple jobs and a wife. I don’t want to burden him much more than necessary!”  

Burmeister was also surprised by the turnout of voters in this year’s election. “I’m surprised at how many people actually paid attention to the election,” he said.   

Other officers for the upcoming school year include sophomore Quinlan Hendrickson of Lincoln, Nebraska, as vice president, sophomore Emma VanTol of Unionville, Michigan, as treasurer, and sophomore Kayla Korb of Burley, Idaho, as secretary.  

Want to learn more about Concordia’s Student Senate? Find it on the club’s web page.