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Student Senate

Meet the Senate, who exists to communicate the needs and wants of our students.

Student Senate group photo

About the Student Senate

Each year, 30 students from across campus are elected as Senators to help bridge the gap between faculty, staff, and students. Our job is to allocate funding to clubs and organizations, address living environment concerns, and overall, work to mold Coe College and its students' dreams.

Some of our favorite Senate ideas implemented on campus are:

  • LoCoe - an annual fall event that brings Cedar Rapids life to Coe with local food trucks and musical artists.
  • Menstrual Hygiene Project - to help anyone ever caught by surprise, Senate stocks all of the bathrooms in academic buildings with free tampons and pads.
  • Dropboxes - installed in centralized locations around campus, Dropboxes allow easy access to providing Senate with living environment concerns and feedback.

Funding

Student Senate is fully funded by the $142.50 Student Activities fee that every full-time student pays in their tuition each semester. Biannually, we allocate upwards of $180,000 to support clubs and the improvement of student life.

Meet the Executive Board

The Executive Board of the Student Senate helps to facilitate subcommittees and maintain order in meetings. At the beginning of each calendar year, student pairs are given the opportunity to run for the elected seats of the Student Body President and Vice President. The new leaders appoint the rest of their board with the approval of the Senate. The full Executive Board for the 2024 year is as follows:

  • Student Body President — Avery Babcock
  • Vice President of the Student Body —Logan Johnson
  • Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — Oyin Adewuyi
  • Treasurer — Harry Hawbaker
  • Communications Officer — Bryan Chavez-Ramirez
  • Recording Secretary — Anika Jensen
  • Chairperson — Cecilia Kintopf

 

Avery and Logan's Platform

Advance our campus atmosphere

Coe is spectacular in so many ways. From our historic Marquis Hall to our brand new CHS there is so much to see when you step onto campus. We want to find ways to make Coe an even better place and make currently dull areas shine.

  • Create a mural on our art building to bring some color to that side of campus
    • Art inspired by Robert Kocher, a painting professor who touched many hearts at Coe before he passed recently
  • Continue accessibility walks and light walks to ensure a safe, welcoming and bright campus
  • Find small ways to improve the living environment of students and to make our facilities stand out even more than before

Make Coe a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment

It's important to celebrate our diverse cultures and make Coe an inclusive place. We also want to find ways to educate and provide ways for students to report bias incidents more easily. We plan to:

  • Increase DEI education and bias education for senators, leaders and budget and finance committee with advanced training programs
  • Provide a DEI concerns box to send to student senate leaders
  • Ensure campus tours include intercultural center and Queer Resource Center
  • Make the bias incident report easier to find in both our new Coe app and myCoe
  • Ensure access to food for those who need religious and food allergy accommodations
  • Continue lunch with leadership to allow students to talk with leaders about how to best support cultural diversity
  • Foster more communication with diverse organizations and increase student leader participation in cultural club events
  • Connect BIPOC and LGBTQ professors to students for a supportive resource
  • Continue the menstrual hygiene project so that students are able to get the resources they need

Fostering a more technologically advanced campus

With the rapidly increasing student demand for a more technologically advanced grading system, apps and easily accessible online resources, we knew we had to take a stand for our new generations of students to come.

  • Create a universal Coe app with all the resources a student needs. With links to bias incident reports, creating a tutoring appointment and setting up a check-in with our health and wellness resources; we want you to be one tap away from getting the help you need
  • Work with faculty committees and board members to push for Coe to use their current Moodle grading and assignment system
  • Support universal and reliable online DEI and Title IX training for Coe students, leaders and faculty
  • Emphasize the importance of downloading the Coe Safe app

Creating Student Connections

We want to build a more connected Coe community where students have spaces to connect. We also want to generate relationships and communication with students and staff.

  • When our new PUB opens, we want to work with leadership and staff to make it the new student space on campus; we want to help sponsor board games so students can relax with friends
  • Continuing our tradition of electing student representatives on faculty and Board of Trustee committees
  • Advertise Student Senate and encourage students and student leaders to get involved on campus
  • We want to bring student issues to staff immediately and work on finding ways to problem-solve beforehand and communicate that with students
  • Make Coes resources more available and easy to find with the new app, posters, Instagram and meetings with senate or executives

For any questions involving Student Senate or your Coe experience, please contact senate@coe.edu.

Getting Involved

At the beginning of each academic year, a petition will be sent out to the full student body and students who want to join must obtain a predetermined number of signatures from their residence community. Once that is completed, a school wide poll will be emailed out and qualified candidates are elected in by members of that community.

All meetings are open to members of the Coe community. Anyone can address their concerns during the Open Forum section of Senate meetings. Meetings are held every Thursday at 7:00 pm in Cherry Auditorium, and copies of our minutes are available on our Moodle page!

Governing Documents

Learn More