Sean Green was recently chosen by the students of Madison College to be the next Student Senate President. Green has been involved with the Student Senate for a year now, and he serves on the Admin & Finance Committee, Rules Committee, Legislative Affairs Committee, team Development Committee, IT Council as a student body rep, and even works at the front desk for Student Development and Retention Services.

“I took this role as president because I want to help contribute my efforts on improving the student experience at Madison College,” Green said. “So I’m personally invested in this.”

His experience working in student development and retention services has made him more interested and aware of the problems surrounding keeping students in school and helping them succeed. Mental health and environmental factors hurt student retention, even with help and support there are some students who fall through the cracks and end up leaving school or not performing at their potential ability levels.

Speaking on what he is personally interested in working on this upcoming year, Green shared that “mental health has always been a focus” of his.  Green feels that working to support the students who are struggling with mental health and working to prevent some factors from contributing to mental health issues will help empower students to succeed at Madison College.

The Student Senate three-year plan outlines the group’s goals to help improve advising, retention and counseling, as well as help with students facing food insecurity and housing issues.

Each of these issues can hurt a student’s ability to succeed, and are sources of stress or instability even before considering their impact on learning. Green wants to help reduce these problems and distractions, and these are areas where he plans to start working to improve conditions for students.

“My main goal is to help change something and impact it in a positive way,” Green said.

Green feels that it is important to focus on issues that he and the Student Senate can make real progress on. It takes a great deal of coordination and effort to work on any one issue, and it is important to Green to put effort into realistic goals that can have a noticeable impact on the people of Madison College. Continuing work on current initiatives, like fighting food insecurity and working on textbook affordability, as well as finding ways to reduce student worries about issues such as housing insecurity.

Green said he thinks it is great to have groups like those in shared governance at Madison College to provide opportunities to get together and talk about a plan to address student issues. Through the senate, “we have a voice.” He wants to continue to foster the relationship between Student Senate and the governance of Madison College.

Encouraging student involvement and engagement is another personal interest for Green. He feels that the Student Senate could use more attention in terms of promoting elections and interacting with students.

“Participation in voting is important, students voting for senators can really help them,” he said.

Student Senate has real power to change things, and students are the ones who are most aware of what type of change they could use for the good of their community. Getting more students involved in elections and keeping the student senate aware of their struggles plays a large role in keeping the Student Senate effective.

Johnathon Jones passed the torch down to Green as president of the Student Senate and the new Madison College Senators officially took their positions for the coming school year at the start of May.

“The current senate is working hard at making sure that come next week, the new senate will be as united as ever to work on the issues we discussed,” said Green.