The Creighton Students Union, founded in 1922, is a complex organization that serves as the voice of the Creighton student body as well as a liaison between the administration and students. The executive board is the head of this organization and in charge of overseeing the rest of CSU.
Current chief of staff and candidate for CSU president next year, Arts & Sciences junior Matthew Gillespie said the executive board works toward utilizing its resources in the most effective way possible.
“This means allocating the roughly $750,000 in student fees we receive for our annual budget to student organizations, events and more,” Gillespie said.
However, every member has a different job within CSU.
Vice President for Programming and Arts & Sciences junior Carli Haney said her position requires her to provide a wide array of programs.
“My job is to advise over the Program Board and make sure that the programming we do provides multicultural, social, recreational, educational and entertaining programs in alignment with the Creighton University mission statement,” Haney said.
Vice President for Student Affairs and Arts & Sciences senior Robert Placek conducts the business of the Board of Representatives. He said this requires him to oversee the student body from all eight colleges and schools.
CSU has a huge impact on Creighton student life every year, from Public Safety to campus dining. Its role is ever-changing to fit the needs of the student body.
The Zipcar program, Jaywalk and other various events and performers brought to Creighton year after year are a result of the hard work of CSU.
“One of my personal accomplishments of this term was talking with the Rev. Pat Malone S.J., and having the bells at St. John’s ring again on a regular basis,” Placek said.
All current members of the CSU Executive Board have been serving from January 2011 and will continue until this December.
January 2012 will serve as a time to help the new executive board transition into their roles.
Gillespie said that he initially decided to be on the board because of his frustration with CSU not fully representing the student body. If elected to president next year Gillespie said he hopes to continue to develop a new system of representation.
“Its current system is strictly school-based and arbitrarily defines each representative’s constituency as 150 students,” Gillespie said. “So over the past year, I’ve worked with the rest of the executive team to go through all our governing documents to develop a new form of representation that directly represents student organizations, and it is one of my highest priorities for CSU in the
next year.”
Vice President for Finance and Arts & Sciences senior Brooke Thurman said she saw room for growth in her position and hoped to have the position hold a greater accountability for the student fees that CSU receives.
“My hope for the future of CSU is that it can become even more diverse, and get an even wider representation of students to fully show all aspects of the Creighton community,” Thurman said.