Almost a full audience, about 25 people, attended the first student government meeting of the semester Wednesday.

Student Senate Speaker Zach Samples, a sophomore history major with teacher certification, said the last time they had that many people attending a meeting was the Douglas Hall renaming debate last fall.

Most of the attendance consisted of students who applied for the 10 open senate positions.

“The main purpose of this meeting was to show new senators and those who are wishing to be appointed how a meeting runs and to get the ball rolling for our new senate,” Samples said. “I think that new senators and applicants got to meet the leaders of student government so they know who they can go to to ask questions as they are getting acclimated to student government.”

Erin Deason, a freshman political science major, said she applied for student government because she thought the position would be good preparation for law school.

“I think the meeting was a little intimidating, but it was nice to see how organized the meeting was and how they still had fun during the meeting,” Deason said.

Student Body President Ed Hotwagner, a senior mathematics major, said he thought the meeting was a good opportunity for applying students to see the basic operations that occur during the meeting.

“The applying senators who make it on senate will get to step in, knowing all the information they learned at the meeting, instead of having to jump right in without much expectation,” Hotwagner said.

During the meeting, instead of committee reports, former committee members described each committee’s role.

“I liked being able to learn about all of the different committees and I thought the Student Affairs committee sounded very interesting and social,” Deason said.

Mitchell Gurick, a freshman career and technical education major and an applicant, said many of his questions about the student government were answered at the meeting, including how a meeting is organized and how different it is compared to high school.

Justine Ryan, a sophomore communication studies major and an applicant, said she was glad that the meeting did not drag on and she did not realize the extent of different involvement opportunities offered.

“I thought the lobby trip to Springfield was very valuable for me because that is a job I would want to do in the future after all of my schooling,” Ryan said.

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].