It is an unfortunate truth that the nature of the Creighton Students Union, and the day-to-day efforts its members take to represent the interests of students, is often left unknown to many of its constituents. Recent administrations have made efforts to spread the word of CSU’s activities, successes and struggles to the student body through email updates, the CSU website and even, as students may soon witness, spending more time out in the open for students to interacts with their student leaders. Even so, CSU takes great pleasure in informing students here of a small number of the recent accomplishments of their premier student government:

• CSU is returning more money to students than ever before. Overhead expenses have been cut drastically over the past year, freeing more funds to go to graduate, professional and undergraduate student programming and organizations.
• CSU successfully negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding with university administrators, clarifying that the university will raise and reduce the percentage of student fees returned to the student body through CSU in correlation with tuition costs.
• CSU passed a constitution that allows part-time and nontraditional students to vote and be represented in CSU’s structure for the first time in its 90-year history. Further, student organizations (including multicultural groups) will be more directly represented by fellow students.
• CSU planned dozens of highly successful and widely attended events, including a student organization leadership retreat, the annual Jaywalk fundraiser for Jesuit Academy of Omaha, Fallapalooza and many more.
• CSU continues to play an active role in the university planning processes, securing additional parking for off-campus and commuter students, seeking enforcement of current smoking policies and other university-wide policies, issues and discussions.
• Similarly, CSU continues to serve as an advocate and liaison between student groups and university administration, recently serving a critical role in discussions regarding the processes of distributing federal financial aid to student veterans, future possible changes to commencement ceremonies, the addition of a Good Samaritan Policy to university policies and even Meatless Mondays, amongst others.

These and the countless other unmentioned successes of the Creighton Students Union are largely possible due to the dedicated efforts of the highly motivated individuals in CSU’s executive committees. These students, either elected or appointed, serve as the face of the student body to administrators, and sacrifice much of their time throughout the calendar year to fulfill their role as servant leaders to their peers. The jobs these individuals do is often thankless, unknown by those who benefit from them, or even attacked by those who are unaware of the work and commitment they continually put into helping their fellow students. Nonetheless, CSU will continue to serve the student body as it shifts into the future.