The SIU Board of Trustee student trustee election takes place April 9 and 10 on D2L. The student trustee campaign has USG President Adrian Miller facing USG Sen. Kane Hudson. An hour-long debate will be held. April 8 in the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at 6 p.m. between the two candidates. The trustees’ term begins in June when current Student Trustee Jesse Cler’s term expires.

Candiate: Adrian Miller

Adrian Miller, a junior studying political science from Carbondale, is running for the open student trustee seat on the SIU Board of Trustees.

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Miller said he is running because he believes he can truly represent students and advocate the student body on important issues and topics. Miller is president of the Undergraduate Student Government and previously served as a senator for two years.

Miller said as president, he passed the largest finance reform and an election bylaw reform. He is managing changes and improvements to the USG constitutional amendments.

“We’ve had a lot of success in USG the last year. I think that’s a tribute to the great team I’ve had,” he said. “But as president, I have been able to oversee a lot of that success.”

Miller said he matured as a leader and is ready to move on from his current position and will make student representation present as a member of the board.

“I believe I’ve grown as much as I could and I have done as much as I could as president for the year and it’s time for me to move on,” he said. “It’s time for me to serve in another capacity, and I believe that capacity is to serve as student trustee.”

Miller was also appointed for a one-year term on the Illinois Board of Higher Education. He said with all his experience he is ready for the trustee position.

“On day one I can work with the other trustees and start making ground on student issues—advocating for students on the Carbondale campus,” he said.

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Miller’s terms as USG president and as an IBHE board member end in May.

“Really, I’m running as the candidate with experience, the candidate who can make real change,” he said.

The student body will elect the SIU representative next week. Both student representatives from the Carbondale and Edwardsville campus will serve on the board, but Gov. Pat Quinn will appoint one to have the actual student vote. The other representative will hold a symbolic vote on the board.

Miller said he hopes Carbondale gets the vote this year, as SIU-Edwardsville has received the vote the previous two years.

“It will be interesting to see because I don’t know if SIU has ever had a student trustee that served on the Illinois Board of Higher Education and had knowledge of how the system works,” Miller said.

Candidate: Kane Hudson

With a year of legislative work under his belt, Kane Hudson wants to continue his success in Undergraduate Student Government as a trustee in the fall.

Hudson, a freshman from Peoria studying engineering, will announce his candidacy for USG trustee Wednesday.

He said he feels his first year as senator in USG opened up many opportunities and made communicating with students and faculty much easier.

One of the biggest experiences Hudson said would help him is the communication skill he gained in his senator position.

“I would like to investigate and try to create more of a sense of community within the university,” he said. “Because right now, as many people explained earlier, we are a diverse campus, but yet we are still separate.”

Self-segregation is a problem on our campus and not enough is done to address it, Hudson said.

He said the best way to address this problem is to hold seminars, ask questions, dissect students’ problems and hold interviews to provide students with answers to create more understanding and interest in their university.

“Not one person has the complete solution to the problem,” Hudson said. “It’s just many different people have different parts of a solution.”

One of the major points Hudson said is of great importance to the university, is the problem of increasing fees and tuition. He said these rising costs are causing students to lose their college education.

“I had one friend, he was talking to me last semester, complaining about how he didn’t know whether or not he could afford to attend this college next semester,” he said. “This semester, he’s not here.”

Hudson said although it is necessary to increase some fees, many frivolous fees are negatively affecting students and making it difficult to maintain their ability to stay enrolled.

“As a student trustee, I can’t stop all fees increases,” he said. “But I can stop small ones, the ones that aren’t as necessary.”

Hudson said some of the needless fees go into funding random projects that do not necessarily need to be taken care of right away. Eliminating some of these fees could slow down the rising tuition.

With elections coming soon for the fall semester, Hudson said he has high hopes for the next year and would like to continue to be a part of the student’s voice by becoming the next trustee.

“I hope the election goes well, and the students’ voices are heard,” he said.

Both Luke Nozicka and Sarah Niebrugge contributed to this story.

Sarah Niebrugge can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter at @SNiebrugge_DE.

Luke Nozicka can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @lukenozicka, or 536-3311 ext. 268.