The Ohio University Student Senate’s election is Tuesday, March 31, allowing students to vote for candidates for the 2026-27 term.
Student Senate advocates for and represents all OU students and works as the liaison between university administration and students, according to the Senate's website.
“Every year, we help fund over 600 student organizations, as well as helping to host events like Pride Week, Finals Fest, Take Back the Night and many more,” the website said.
The confirmed 2026 ticket voice includes the president, vice president, treasurer, two residence life senators and a Patton College of Education senator.
The voting ticket for the 2026-27 school year has one name per position, meaning if there are no write-in candidates, each position is running unopposed.
Donald Theisen, a junior studying economics and political science, is running for president of the Senate. Theisen is finishing his third year on the Senate and his second year acting as a commissioner.
Theisen said the president acts as the presiding officer and the liaison between the general public and the Senate.
General body meetings are held every Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. in Walter Hall, where students have a chance to speak to the Senate.
After students have the floor, Theisen said the Senate engages internally by deliberating and voting on legislation.
“The agendas before the meetings, and the minutes after, are sent to The Post and New Political, but if students want to directly access everything that we review, legislation that passes is posted on Bobcat Connect,” Theisen said.
Mark Vitelli, a sophomore studying political science, is running for vice president of the Senate. Vitelli is finishing his second year in the Senate and his first year as an academic affairs commissioner.
“Vice president, unlike the president, is a much more internal-facing role, so chairing certain committees of the Senate that look at leadership development,” Vitelli said.
Vitelli said the vice president also chairs the cabinet and the student trustee selection committee.
The cabinet’s responsibility involves discussing major issues that affect multiple commissions, while the student trustee selection committee helps choose the two student trustees in the OU Board of Trustees.
Vitelli said he hopes to focus on the Senate’s internal work due to the Senate's growing size. He said elements of the Senate’s Rules and Procedures might be shortened if he is in office, in order to make the positions easier to understand.
“There's a document (Rules and Procedures) that's about 100 pages long, and I've worked on that quite substantially, Mark has too, and that just sort of lays out all the positions and the commissions and our job descriptions,” Theisen said.
Katelynn Fox, a sophomore studying environmental health science, is running for treasurer of the Senate. Fox finished her first year in the Senate in November. She served as the minority affairs senator and residence life senator and currently serves as residence life commissioner.
As the resident life commissioner, Fox has bi-weekly meetings with the directors of housing. Fox helps students with housing through results from dorm quality surveys and non-selection issues brought to her.
“We're hoping to talk with housing about how we could possibly improve the room selection,” Fox said.
The treasurer oversees all funding toward student organizations, the Senate’s internal budgets and events hosted by the Senate.
“As long as you're a student-registered organization, and you submit all the necessary price documentation of what you’re purchasing, we basically have to give you the money as treasurer,” Fox said. “It's not my job to discriminate.”
Theisen said the ticket plans to reform the community standards process, especially how the Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility handles conduct cases. He said students feel their rights are not respected, pointing to issues such as letters about charges being sent to permanent home addresses and limited access to the evidence against them.
To address this, Theisen helped create a committee to gather complaints and testimony about the current system. Using that input, they plan to push for reforms next year that would make the process fairer and more transparent to students.
Theisen also said part of the Voice ticket’s platform is to support groups disenfranchised by Ohio Senate Bill 1, or the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act.
“Students from communities that had centers right, like the Pride Center, Women's Center, Multicultural Center or programs that they relied on,” Theisen said. “That will be a major focus of the administration, supporting the students and their needs.”
SB1 requires universities to eliminate any undergraduate degree programs that receive fewer than five degrees per year over three years. Theisen said this has been a pressing issue during the past year in the Senate.
“(SB1 is) generally opposed because we feel that the student position is that the student position is that the academic diversity is necessary,” Theisen said. “Part of having a well-rounded education and being a fully functional, productive university is having a wide variety of programs, even if some of them don't graduate a ton of students.”
