Woodson and Andrade take over student senate

New co-presidents are driving for campus bus system

By Jillian Gandsey and Raielle Peterson

Bemidji, MINN. – More community fundraising, a campus bus system, and collaborating with the Sanford Center are a few plans that the new student senate co-presidents, Charlie Woodson and David Andrade, have in mind for next year. 

Woodson has been a part of student senate since his freshmen year at BSU.  “I was just looking for something to do,” he said.  Currently, he is a junior Design Technology major.

Andrade also considered involvement in student senate his freshmen year but he didn’t fully commit to it until he met Woodson a year later.  “We became really good friends and we said that our senior year we should be the presidents,” claimed Andrade.  Currently, he is majoring in Criminal Justice. 

Normally schools have a president and a vice president, but Bemidji State is the only school in the MNSCU (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities) that has two co-presidents.  “It makes working together a lot easier,” said Woodson. 

David Andrade (left) and Charlie Woodson
(right) are excited about next year's co-
presidency.

Woodson and Andrade were enthusiastic about accomplishing their goals for next year.  “We really want to stress that we are trying to correlate with the community,” said Woodson. 

A large issue that the new co-presidents will face next year is that student senate has supported the elimination of the current contract that BSU has with Paul Bunyan Transit.  This cut was another result of the recent recalibration.  However, Woodson and Andrade have been considering other options for students without their own means of transportation on campus.  Woodson had said that he would like to get the students’ opinion to see if they should continue the usage of Paul Bunyan Transit. 

Woodson and Andrade had several ideas to resolve the issue of students losing their way of transportation.  Redoing the contract was certainly in mind, and having only the students who want to ride it, pay. Adding another fee to tuition was also a possible solution. 

The co-presidents said they were also thinking they would like to create their own internal campus bus system, which would be more affiliated with BSU.  “It would be nothing against Paul Bunyan Transit,” said Woodson. “We think they’re a great business.”  They still would like to use their amenities for getting students around town.

“It would help the students who are having to go in between campuses,” said Andrade.  BSU and the Northwest Technical College are closely connected so having transportation between the two schools would be essential.  They also mentioned that having an internal bus system could offer additional work-study jobs to students. 

The new co-presidents also made it clear that they wanted to do more fundraising within BSU and the Bemidji community.  Beltrami County, being the poorest county in Minnesota, is where their motivation has come from.  “We have more elementary schools that aren’t doing so well,” claimed Woodson. 

Their plan to help out the local elementary schools is with the use of box tops.  They started assisting with the box tops this year, but they plan to continue their action into next year as well.  “We have such a tight community and it’s a college town so we want to make sure that our student voices are heard at a city level as well,” said Andrade.

Another plan that Woodson and Andrade have is using the recent surplus in the green-fee to go towards solar panels for the Sanford Center.  Erika Bailey-Johnson approached the student senate with that proposal and it has seemed to click ever since.  “We feel that the Sanford Center, over there, is another part of our campus because it’s used so heavily,” said Woodson. 

Photos taken by Jae Seifert