Most UWM Student Association Seats are Unfilled, Leaving Big Decisions to a Handful of Reps

In early December, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association, UWM’s student government, held its last meeting of the semester. It was in a meeting room with a maximum capacity of 16. Senators followed parliamentary procedures as they voted on legislation and appointments that impact the university and how students’ money is spent.

But only three people had the final say.

The semester began with two of only three incoming senators stepping down, leaving just one acting senator and 37 vacant seats. By December’s meeting, students had filled four more seats, bringing the total to five. Two were absent, but the Senate was at least able to meet quorum and vote on legislation. Although the Senate now has just enough officers to operate, the vacancies paralyzed the Student Association in the first few weeks of the semester.

“We literally didn’t work for like a month,” said Roman Fritz, current Student Association president.

The Student Association Senate makes decisions on behalf of the whole student body. For example, the Senate can decide whether the university provides a bus pass to students.

The Senate also makes appointments to powerful committees. The Senate Finance and Student Appropriations committees allocate millions of dollars in student fees, which are paid by students each semester. The money is supposed to improve student life, such as funding the Student Union and the activities of student organizations.

The Student Association Senate represents and advocates for a range of entities at UWM, from individual schools and colleges to specific groups. There are also several at-large seats. As the representatives of the students, senators write and vote on legislation.

“We’ve worked this hard to get it into just being operational,” Fritz said, “and now we need to actually get it to a place where it’s really stable.”

But Fritz announced in the meeting that he was stepping down as president at the end of the current semester, which is his last at UWM.

The Student Association Senate has not always been the skeleton crew it is today. In 2020, a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person classes, over 20 senators attended the Senate meeting.

“The filling of the seats fluctuates,” said Mia Heredia, a Student Association Professional Staff assistant and a former president of the Student Association. “It kind of ebbs and flows when people walk through the door and figure out what Student Association is.”

During Heredia’s time as president, which ended in 2021, she estimated that around half of the Senate seats were filled. Although the current five is a fraction of that, she describes the Student Association today as growing, pointing to the increase in fresh faces getting involved, such as Fritz.

One of the benefits for senators is priority enrollment, which allows them to pick their classes before most other students. Fritz said that this is not enticing enough on its own to fill the vacant seats.

“I think we should be paying them, but the issue with that is that we need senators to reform the constitution,” Fritz said. “But they don’t get paid, so people don’t want to be senators.”

While the Senate can meet quorum at meetings, so few senators means there is very little legislation to discuss. At December’s meeting, the Senate voted on just one bill.

“The fact that we don’t have senators means that we can’t do a lot of stuff. It means we don’t have a lot of people writing legislation,” Fritz said.

Jonathan Joseph is a leader of Prowl Radio, a student-run club. Because Prowl Radio raises most of its own money, he said the Student Association could be doing more to support the club.

“If we didn’t have to do our own fundraising and were able to just apply to get resources from the student government, that would make things so much easier,” Joseph said.

Joseph said he didn’t know even there was a student government at UWM until he saw Fritz campaigning for president on his Instagram page last spring.

The last meeting of the fall semester resulted in a handful of committee appointments and one piece of legislation passing before adjourning until spring. Students can fill a Senate seat by applying online and gathering either 30 or 40 signatures from other students, depending on the seat.