New members will be stepping in to fill the student senate executive officer positions for 2013-14.

Because the online voting system was temporarily offline during voting hours, voting took place in Harter Union, or votes could be directed to Dean of Students Cassy Bailey’s office.

All of the candidates were running unopposed. Sophomore Owen Lewis will become the new student body president, with sophomore Rachel Haley joining him as the vice president.

Sophomore Claire White will be the secretary, and junior Tim Laughlin will take over as the public relations officer. There was no candidate for treasurer, but sophomore Alexia Nyoni received enough write-ins to be offered the position.

Nyoni has never been on student senate, but she believes she may be able to use what she’s learning as part of her accounting and business management major courses to help her with the treasurer position.

“I’ve always wanted to be part of student senate and when I saw the treasurer position was open, I was like, ‘you know what, I want to take a challenge,'” Nyoni said, “and maybe it will involve learning more about our constitution, … student body things, and (I can) work well with them to try and enjoy the experience at Baker, basically.”

Lewis is “definitely excited” but “a little overwhelmed as well” about becoming the new student senate president. He said next year’s student senate will play an important role in selecting a new university president.

“I think what will be a big function of student senate is really voicing concerns about what we want in a new president as well as what we want as to how to face where the university is going,” Lewis said.

The election of these officers brings the conclusion of current officers’ terms. This year’s student senate president, Katie Thurbon, said her time in office was spent working on internal issues to make the next president’s job easier.

“I feel like a lot of the things senate has accomplished this year has been internal and a lot of my goals were to streamline some of the processes within student senate to make it easier for the people who come after me,” Thurbon said. “Sometimes I feel like we didn’t accomplish a whole lot around campus, but I hope that what we have done within our own organization will make it easier for (the next) presidents and senators to accomplish things.”