Marquette Student Government unanimously approved Joe Daufenbach, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, as the organization’s new Executive Vice President during its meeting Thursday. The vote was held less than two weeks after former EVP Bill Neidhardt, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, announced his resignation.

President Arica Van Boxtel, a senior in the College of Communication, chose Daufenbach for the position last week, but her appointment needed to be ratified by two-thirds of the MUSG Senate before Daufenbach could officially take office. At the meeting, Van Boxtel said Daufenbach was the perfect candidate for the job because of his experience in the Student Organization Funding process. As EVP, Daufenbach will chair the SOF committee and oversee the allocation of students’ activity fees to student organizations.

One of the ways Daufenbach said he plans to improve the SOF process is by making the committee’s decisions more public. He said he plans to work with MUSG’s communication department to ensure that all students will have the opportunity to know what the SOF committee is doing with their activity fees.

The Senate also elected two new members to the SOF committee during Thursday’s meeting. Senators Kyle Whelton and Tyler Tucky, sophomores in the College of Arts & Sciences, were chosen to fill the two open committee seats.

Vice President of Mission and Ministry Stephanie Russell also gave a presentation and led a conversation about the university’s mission statement at the meeting.  Russell said that since Marquette is going through a period of strategic planning and reaccreditation, the university plans to update its mission statement for the first time in about 15 years.

She added that her office will want to start hearing from students on the mission statement and how it has affected their college experiences in the next week or so. When that time comes, students will be able to go to either the strategic planning website (http://www.marquette.edu/president/strategic-planning.php) or the Mission and Ministry page (http://www.marquette.edu/mission/index.shtml) to give their feedback.