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New EHS Student Senator Aligns Interest in Education with Policy, Advocacy, and Action

 Kelsey Bittel

James M. Loy, Miami University

As a first-year student and education studies major, Kelsey Bittel is already making the most of her Miami experience. 

Only a few weeks into her second semester on campus, Bittel was recently confirmed as an academic senator in Miami’s Associated Student Government (ASG), where she will represent the College of Education, Health and Society (EHS).

“It's a big step,” Bittel says. “This is actually making a real change on campus.”

ASG primarily acts on student complaints, approves funding for over 250 campus organizations, drafts new legislation, and ensures that all student rights are met. In the past, ASG has addressed problems concerning dining, advising, transportation, and more. Overall, the mission is to serve students by improving all aspects of campus life.

By serving on the governmental relations committee, Bittel plans to help mend the increasingly polarized political rifts that she sees across campus and the community. She will also serve on the diversity and inclusion committee, where she will help promote a vision and mission that’s already become a cornerstone of her college career.

“From my experience in EHS, those are two things that are stressed in every single class I've taken,” she says. “Inclusion and diversity have been key points, and I really look forward to developing those with individual students and constituents, and also between colleges and departments as a whole.”

She is also eager to explore all the ways ASG uniquely intersects with both her academic interests and her plans for the future.

“I’m really looking forward to my experience in senate to develop what I'm doing in education studies,” Bittel says. “Instead of on the classroom and on teaching, education studies is a focus on the school and the education system as a whole. There's a lot of different paths you can take, and the one that I am looking at pursuing is policy advocating, and more of a political government role with education. Senate plays right into that.”