The results are in. Justin Brugman and his running mate Drew Janego have won the ASNMU election as president and vice president, respectively, in what was the lowest voter turnout in the past ten years. Last week’s vote would have had the second lowest voter turnout had it not been nullified. Janego said he’s glad that the message he and Brugman delivered resonated with the students that voted for them.
“It makes me feel good that students liked what we had to say. Students are optimistic and now I just look forward to implementing what we set out to do,” Janego said.
Brugman shared the same sentiments as Janego, saying that it felt great to win, especially with the added the stress of having to do the vote over again.
Brugman and Janego will officially take office on Monday, April 18 in a changing of the boards. However, next Monday will be the last ASNMU meeting of the semester as they do not meet during finals week.
The changes that Brugman and Janego want to make will be discussed over the summer and finalized in the fall to put into action. One of the changes includes a committee to make sure ASNMU is doing what it says it’s doing. The committee will be made up out of four or five students, as well as the president.
“This committee will meet monthly, weekly, or however many times they want to and will basically be a check on ASNMU to make sure the job is being done,” Janego said. “It’s going to basically be an oversight of everything we’re doing to make sure we don’t get elected to office and then have nothing happen.”
Although the program will be created by ASNMU, Janego said the committee will vote by majority rule, which means that if the non-ASNMU students on the committee want a program gone, they will be able to get rid of it.
Another issue they would like to focus on would be filling the vacancies on the ASNMU board. They plan to fill these by getting out on campus more, possibly having office hours in Starbucks and just spreading the word as much as they can.
“I think letting students see that we actually mean what we say and that we’re going to be there will give them more of a reason to join ASNMU,” Janego said.
Brugman said that a device to ensure the voice of students is heard will be the campus city task force, which would consist of city officials, university administration, student representatives and local business owners.
“We would talk about what’s happening on campus, what’s happening in the city, what’s not working and how to fix it,” Brugman said. “It’s going to be a great tool to increase student voices in the city because we are a huge population of Marquette.”
Brugman and Janego also plan to tackle issues that have been of importance to students before, such as the PEIF pass, the smoking ban and parking.
“I would like the PEIF pass included in tuition,” Janego said. “Having said that, I’m also not going to lie to people and say this is going to happen next semester, because it’s going to be a long battle. I can see both sides and I’m with the students 100 percent in trying to make it work.”
Brugman said that as far as the smoking ban goes, the surveys that have been out in the past have been 50-50.
“Knowing that, I cannot take a view as president on it,” Brugman said. “I think Dr. Wong retracted that for now, but I would like to see the 30-foot rule being enforced.”
In terms of parking, both Brugman and Janego acknowledged that parking will always be a problem but will reach out to students to find out what problems they may have. Brugman also wanted to remind students that they can appeal a ticket if they feel it was given unfairly.
As president, Brugman also wants to know the true issues students are faced with and not just what former presidents assumed.
“It’s been done in the past two years where ASNMU says these are the student concerns without actually talking to the students,” Brugman said. “We want students to come to us and say ‘These are the concerns that we have, can you bring these to the administration.’”
