The voting is finally over.

After a process that took much longer than expected due to a secretary run-off election, members of the Aquinas community finally know who their new Senate leaders are.

Beginning Senate’s March 26 meeting, outgoing Chair Josh Marko praised Aquinas President C. Edward Balog, the Senate Cabinet, adviser Dave Weinandy and the Senate at large.

Balog praised Marko’s term, saying “I had a great time working with Josh.”

Taking over for Marko will be John Kalinowski, who greeted the assembly via a short video. Kalinowski was unable to attend the meeting as he is studying in Germany until the end of July. Senators were greeted with a surprise, however, as Kalinowski had shaved his signature beard for the presentation.
Kalinowski beat out former Vice Chair Brandon Sexton for the position by just 10 votes — taking 207 to Sexton’s 197.

Leading the assembly until Kalinowski’s return will be Brad Bosserman, who was elected vice chair. He won the post handily with 260 votes compared to freshman Sam Granger’s 131. Bosserman will serve as acting chair until Kalinowski’s return.

Interestingly, the secretary vote was a statistical dead tie at the time of the meeting, and so Bosserman was the only member that could be sworn in. Secretary candidates Kasey Baker and Amanda Chatel participated in a run-off election last Thursday, with Baker eventually coming out on top, 224 to 195.

Baker will be sworn in at the next meeting.

Interim Provost Don Chaffee continued the meeting, focusing on a new mission statement regarding academic integrity. The statement had been approved by both the Aquinas Board of Trustees and the Faculty Assembly. The motion passed the Senate without incident.

Chaffee additionally provided Senate with the results of the recently conducted survey on academic integrity at Aquinas.

“What I found was that most of the responses were pretty similar,” Chaffee said, referring to the similarities between faculty and student responses.

He noted that academic cheating occurs “seldom” or “very seldom,” according to the survey taken by approximately 50 faculty and 300 students. Overall, however, the survey’s results confirmed what Chaffee described as a decidedly more “pessimistic” attitude of the faculty regarding cheating.

Budget Director Karen Harag then presented the assembly with an update, stating that there was $1,043 left in the unallocated account.

The Political Affairs Committee also presented senators with a consensus of the Senate Cabinet that the Clubs and Organizations Committee be eliminated. If this occurred, Campus Life would take over and consolidate its former duties.

Some expressed concern over the plan. “I would just like to keep clubs and orgs in touch with Senate,” said Special Events Director Ian O’Brien.

Finally, Student Affairs Director Alex Getz presented the results of the Co-Educational Survey. In response to the question, “Have you ever broken the co-ed policy?,” approximately 80 percent of students said they had. Getz concluded by saying he would take the results to Residence Life for future consideration.