Student Senate President Kirk Wesley’s Welcome Back Address

At the first general meeting of the Student Senate for the fall semester on September 17, 2009, President Kirk Wesley gave a Welcome Back address to those in attendance, laying out his vision for the representative body going forward. Listen to the audio version of the address, or read the transcript below.

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Kirk Wesley, 9-17-09:

All right. So, we’re going to move on to the first order of business.

I would like to welcome everyone back to school, and back into student activities. This is, obviously, our initial meeting of the Student Senate for the Fall ’09 semester.

This, in my opinion, will undoubtedly be one of the greatest, eventful semesters in Housatonic’s history in regards to student activities and events, because of the dedication and commitment that the student clubs have already shown early in the semester in getting things together and getting things organized. It is evident from the Welcome Back party that the Student Senate is focused on trying to promote a good on-campus lifestyle for the students here, outside of academic purposes.

Now, for those who aren’t familiar, I would like to just state what the Student Senate does, and what work we do here.

“The Student Senate” – this is coming out of the Constitution of the Student Senate – “The Student Senate serves to promote good citizenship and harmonious relationships throughout the college and the community, serves to provide a forum for student representation, and to provide orderly direction of college activities. The Student Senate assists the office of Student Life in the allocation and distribution of the Student Activity Fund.”

Now, the Student Activity Fund is what we all pay when we register here as students, whether part-time or full-time. And as that sentence says, we help with the Student Activities Director to help allocate the funds to the student clubs.

Now, what I would like to say is that we are right now in a very opportunist position, because we have the chance right now to right a lot of wrongs that have been…that have happened in the past. Things that definitely, that I’m not going to go in depth with…but those who are familiar know, and who don’t know – thank God you don’t know.

So, we are in a very good position right now to set a very good tone for future students, future activities, and future events that will take place here at Housatonic. I want everybody to step into that role, and let’s set the pace and pave the way for future students here.

I also would like to say that we are the Student Senate, so we are students here at Housatonic Community College, and we are here in a forum to represent the students. So it’s essential that we are looked upon as that. As students, we are all here learning and growing as individuals. So we’re not going to always get things right, and things are not going to always go perfect as we would like. That’s part of the process of growing and learning as human beings, and especially as students.

So, with that being said, I would like for all members of student clubs and all student clubs to try to work with us as we work with you, be patient with us as we grow and continue to get comfortable in our positions, and we will do the same with you.

I really think right now, at this point in time, that’s it. I mean, we’re here for you guys: the student clubs, the student reps, the student leaders of this great college. So please help us as we try to help you.

And that ends it. (applause)