Dana Scott / Winonan
Nicole Zimmerman, Student Senate’s current president and senior nursing major from Cuba City, Wisc., first got involved in Student Senate her sophomore year after winning a write-in vote for Nursing Health Science chair.
Zimmerman feels as if she fell into the position and said she will be “forever grateful.”
The main reason Zimmerman wanted to run for Student Senate president was because she really likes to help people and saw this as another opportunity to do so.
“It’s more rewarding than I would have ever guessed,” Zimmerman said.
Initially, she thought she would be too busy her senior year to be student senate president.
However, Josh Hanson, the Student Senate president before Zimmerman, encouraged her to consider running. At a conference in the Twin Cities last spring, Hanson allowed Zimmerman to watch him in board meetings.
Zimmerman loved seeing Hanson make important decisions that can benefit so many people, and realized being Student Senate president was something she wanted to do.
Once she decided to officially run for the position, Zimmerman shared it was fun to get the chance to begin to tell people her ideas and was happy people were receptive about them.
“It was overwhelming. I didn’t know if I would be able to manage,” Zimmerman said. “But it is so worth it; it was made for me.”
Now, a few months into her role as president, it is not as hard as Zimmerman thought it would be to manage her time.
There are many things Zimmerman hopes to implement this year, one thing being a Classroom Awareness campaign. This campaign will advocate to raise awareness that students have more than just being a student on their plates.
Zimmerman is working closely with the new chair of the student services committee, Jackson Ramsland, on finalizing ideas for this campaign by mid-November.
They plan for the campaign to include posters to hang around campus and workshops with professors to discuss topics such as test anxiety, counseling and diversity in the classroom.
“Mental health is a priority to me,” Zimmerman said.
Another priority and passion of Zimmerman’s is LGBT equality.
“As a member of the LGBT community it’s really important to integrate this into the work that I do,” Zimmerman said.
Another implementation this year is advocating for a LGBT resource on campus, along with supporting events and programing. Zimmerman is currently assisting other senators to write a motion for this.
Additionally, Zimmerman has been working on improving pedestrian safety around campus. She and other student senators have been meeting with city council members, managers and engineers to make recommendations for improvements on the streets of Huff, Main and Broadway.
Along with these campaigns and implementations for campus, Zimmerman has been working on changing student senate itself.
“I’ve been improving the efficiency of senate and holding senators to a higher standard,” Zimmerman said. “That’s something I’m proud of because it then leads them to be doing better work for students.”
Zimmerman shared she has gotten really close to the senators on student senate and she believes this leads them to do better work.
“I see them grow more as leaders each week,” Zimmerman said. “That is what motivates me to keep working as hard as I do.”
-By Dana Scott
