Ladies and gentlemen, the votes are in. Next year’s Student Senate president will be current junior Jacob Hill. Hill won the presidency over sophomore Takayla Gadberry by just five votes.
Hill has been involved in the Student Senate since his freshman year. He is currently the Student Senate treasurer, where his job is to make sure that they maintain a balanced account, that they are financially responsible as an organisation, and that they distribute allegations to other clubs fairly and quickly.
As Hill steps into the president spot in the fall of 2018, his role will change.
As the president, he will be responsible for setting the agenda during the senate meetings and ensuring each student is represented fairly on campus. Hill will meet with the university president, as well as the board of trustees to serve as an advocate for student voices.
“Getting voted in was the easy part in this whole process,” said Hill. “Now that I made it as the next president of the senate, I do face some tall challenges of trying to bring changes on this campus. Which, at the student debate, I did make some bold stances, and I plan on doing the best I can to deliver on the promises I did make because that is something that I owe to the student body.”
Hill has made some big plans for the upcoming year and said he is ready for the challenge ahead of him.
One of the biggest challenges Hill wants to tackle is a revision of the alcohol policy. To do so, he will have to work with the new university president, as well as the rest of the administration. Although he does not want to turn Bluffton into a party school, Hill said he wants the university to relax its policy so students who are of legal age to consume alcohol, 21, may drink in the residence halls under certain conditions, such as not distributing to other students or threatening the safety of themselves or others.
He sees this as an opportunity to keep some students from transferring or deterring prospective students. He said that with the current policy —which prohibits the use and possession of alcohol on campus for all students — if a student does see an empty bottle or can that contains alcohol, they run the risk of being referred.
Another of Hill’s goals is to implicate what he called “town hall meetings.” He said instead of having the students come to the senators with suggestions and concerns, the senators would go out into the residence halls and the students could talk to them there.
He also wants to get the menu at Bob’s Place to always be visible instead of a moving slideshow. He said that if students can see the whole menu and what it has to offer, Bob’s could become a more popular late night snack option.
Hill is also a member of the cross country and track teams at Bluffton. He is from Dayton, Ohio, where he graduated from Wayne High School. He was also involved in his high school’s Bible club, where he had the chance to talk about ableism.
