Have you ever thought about how your voice gets heard? Who are the people who take your suggestions and thoughts about Asbury to the faculty and staff? Those people, the mediators between students and our school’s leaders, comprise the Asbury Student Congress (ASC).
The Asbury Student Congress is a collection of student leaders including class cabinets, student intercultural representatives, students from each academic department, etc. Working alongside ASC is the Executive Cabinet (EC). The Executive Cabinet comprises seven students whose primary role is representing our students to the Asbury faculty and staff.
Emma Reid is the 2023-24 Student Body President, and she works alongside four Vice Presidents: VP of the Student Governance Association (SGA) Hannah Bartels, VP of the Spiritual Life Board Savannah Buchholz, VP of Clubs and Congress Christian Phillips, and VP of Student Intercultural Programs Canaan Yan. EC also has two appointed positions: Executive Treasurer Rex Nagel and Executive Publicist Chloe Stivers.
Before there is a vision that this Executive Cabinet has for our campus, they first have a vision for themselves as this small community of seven. When talking about their community, the uniqueness among them, and her hopes for this EC team, Reid shared this:
“We have different jobs, but we all really collaborate in the sense that we want to work for students and team with our faculties. We all sit on committees and so we touch a lot of different areas of campus. Even so, we have a lot of different majors, from Accounting and English to Biochem and Intercultural Studies. I hope that helps us to be representative of the student body in the sense that we get to help make decisions that better not only students in the future but students that are here.”
Executive Publicist Chloe Stivers also shared her vision for their team this year: “We desire for ASC/EC to be transparent with this student body. We also want to bridge the gap between students and faculty––creating relationships and transparency with both.”
The Executive Cabinet has a unique vision for Asbury’s campus this year. They chose the verse Micah 6:8 to be representative of that vision: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God” (NIV).
Not only has the Executive Cabinet chosen a Bible verse for this school year, but Chloe Stivers has also created a logo for this 2023-2024 team. The logo is a rock arch with the word “Steadfast” in blue lettering. This is her heart behind the logo:
“I designed this year’s logo to represent the story in Joshua. The rock arch symbolizes a memorial we erect in remembrance of the good things God has done in our lives”, Stivers said. “We will move on together in steadfastness to our Lord. I chose the font for steadfastness as a flowy font instead of a rigid one because I think of steadfastness as a river. Life keeps moving and pushing us forward, but we continue in the direction God has for us”.
New hammocking poles around campus, new dumbells at the Luce Center, and the discussion of rising minimum wage for student workers are all examples of things the Student Government has been working on. They also have been meeting with campus safety to discuss adding additional lighting and cameras around buildings and parking lots for a safer campus.
Overall, the Asbury Student Congress and the Executive Cabinet are for the students.
“I want [students] to know that we conduct every action in our cabinet with our hearts first”, said Vice President of SGA Hannah Bartels. “We care a lot about what we do and there is a lot of intentionality behind all the details that we work out, and we want students to come to us with their concerns and ideas because every person’s perspective is important to us. We want to do everything we can in these roles to enhance the student body’s experience.”
