Austin Kelly

Austin Kelly has a vision for the Student Senate office. The Lawrence senior sees an office with no doors. He sees a sign-up sheet for meetings with the Student Senate president. He’s sees students meeting with the president and voicing their opinions.

And of course, Kelly, who is the current Student Senate treasurer, sees himself sitting in the president’s seat.

“Every coalition ever talks about (how) ‘We’re going to be open and available to students,’” Kelly said. “But then, they go into their offices and lock themselves away from anyone coming in.”

Kelly wants something different. Kelly, a Lawrence native, said he wanted to bring something fresh to the University. He’s running for Student Senate president as part of the Connect KU coalition.

The Lawrence native said he never had any goals or ambition of running for Student Senate president. He didn’t even become involved with Student Senate until the second semester of his sophomore year.

“I think that’s valuable because you don’t spend four years thinking like a student senator,” Kelly said. “You spend two years thinking like everybody else.”

And Kelly say it’s “everybody else” he’s most concerned about.

Kelly said he and the Connect KU vice presidential candidate, Jason Oruch, spent time last fall visiting various student organizations to ask what they thought about Student Senate. The results weren’t pretty, Kelly said.

“I’d hear words like ‘elitist’ and ‘no one cares,’” Kelly said.

Kelly talked passionately about changing that image.

Kelly Parker, Kelly’s junior high chess coach, remembers Kelly bringing the same passion he shows for Student Senate to the game of chess.

“Austin would never give up,” Parker said. “Even if he saw a kid was 10 moves away from beating him, he would never quit. He was going to make that kid make those 10 moves.”

Kelly would rather not focus on chess. Nevermind the fact that Kelly competed in numerous national chess tournaments. Nevermind the fact that Kelly said chess taught him the value of patience.

“I just don’t want to look like a nerd,” Kelly said.

Funny thing is, Parker said he didn’t remember anything nerdy about the young kid who first sat in his seventh grade geography class. He remembers a focused Kelly who commanded respect from all his classmates.

“He’s got that air about him, where he could say, ‘Hey, listen to me, and we’ll go far. We’ll get things done,’” Parker said. “He always knew where he wanted to go, and he knew he had to work hard to get there.”

Kelly said his motivation for running for president was simple.

“I honestly feel like I’m the most qualified person for the job,” Kelly said. “Based on my experience in the office, my experience being around the University, I really believe that. That’s the main driving force.”

Kelly has spent the last two years as Student Senate treasurer, approving the senate-funded purchases of student organizations.

“I’ve been student body treasurer longer than current sophomores have been at KU,” Kelly said.

Before becoming involved with Senate, Kelly, who has lived at the Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall for nearly four years, served on the All-Scholarship Hall Council.

But right now, Kelly is more concerned about his vision for a revamped Student Senate.

“I really feel like Student Senate has stagnated,” Kelly said. “I think Jason and I give the students a chance to go on a new course. I think if students elect us, they’ll see it, and if they don’t, I don’t believe they will. I think they’ll get more of the same.”

Adam McGonigle

Adam McGonigle’s cell phone rang a few weeks ago. His father was on the line. Eric McGonigle had spent his morning reading a story about his son on the Internet, and some of the reader comments had been less than flattering.

One in particular had caught Eric’s eye, so dad called son. “I’m so proud,” Eric joked with his son. “To be the dad of a son who gave up his dignity to be student body president.”

Then Eric McGonigle gave his son some fatherly advice.

“I told him it’s all in a day’s living,” Eric McGonigle said.

Well, maybe not for everyone. But when you’re McGonigle, and you’re running for president of Student Senate as part of the United Students coalition, scrutiny comes with the territory.

It’s something that the Wichita sophomore said he had come to understand. Whether it’s somebody questioning his youth, or someone questioning his dignity, McGonigle said he laughed it off.

He said he never expected to run for Student Senate president when he arrived on campus in fall 2006. McGonigle, a graduate of North High School in Wichita, read the newspaper one day and saw an advertisement about freshman Student Senate elections.

“It was kind of done on a whim,” McGonigle said.

But McGonigle, who is majoring in journalism and political science, won a seat as a senator.

“I really jumped right into Senate and got involved from that point on,” McGonigle said. “I started writing bills, funding different organizations, started learning the inner workings of Student Senate.”

McGonigle also spent time during his freshman year working in Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ office in Topeka.

A year and a half later, McGonigle is running for Student Senate president, and if he wins, he’ll become the first sophomore to be elected president since Steve Munch in spring 2003.

Student Senate President Hannah Love said she thought McGonigle was more than capable of leading Student Senate.

“He’s very organized, he always has everything together. When he goes into a meeting, he’s totally prepared,” Love said.

Love said McGonigle proved himself as a leader last spring, when he dedicated himself to the United Students coalition campaign and ran for a freshman-sophomore senator position.

“He definitely stood out as a leader,” Love said.

Love has a story she likes to tell about McGonigle.

After being elected Student Senate president last April, Love was faced with the task of hiring the Chair of the Student Executive Committee. Love said McGonigle impressed her.

“We were talking to our advisers, and we said this kid needs to be in a higher leadership role,” Love said.

But some of Love’s advisers were concerned about the fact that McGonigle was just a freshman.

“This kid’s amazing,” Love said she told her advisers.

“But he’s just a freshman,” they said again.

“No,” Love finally said. “You don’t understand. He’s Adam McGonigle.”

McGonigle has his own opinions about youth and experience.

“I think the reason age is important is because of experience, and typically age accompanies experience,” McGonigle said.

He said his position as Chair of the Student Executive Committee had prepared him for the challenge of being president.

“And,” McGonigle said. “I have the fresh ideas that are desperately needed right now.”

McGonigle said the time he spent serving Senate this year motivated him to improve campus.

“If your motivation isn’t actually that you believe in the ideas you want to implement, if that’s not your motivation, then you’re going to have a tough time in this campaign,” McGonigle said. “Because it can be grueling at times.”

And when the campaign does become grueling, McGonigle said he relies on his family.

McGonigle has a sister who is a senior at William Jewel College in Liberty, Mo., and a brother who is a senior at North High School.

“They are what keep me chugging away day to day,” McGonigle said. “I’m working hard to make KU a better place, but what I care about most, is my family, my faith and my friends.”

Adam Wood

Adam Wood is running for Student Senate president as part of the Students of Liberty coalition. He knows it will be a challenge, but the Lawrence native has been through challenges before.

Wood lay in a hospital bed in fall 2005. With a plastic tube shoved through his nose and down into his stomach, Wood sat up and began vomiting stomach acid.

“It was some kind of hell,” said Wood, a Lawrence native who had just finished his first semester at Kansas the previous spring. He spent a month in that hospital bed, unable to eat or drink. Wood had problems with digestive system.

“I lost 50 pounds,” Wood said. “I think that was a pretty defining moment in my college experience. For all intents and purposes, I really shouldn’t be alive.”

But it was in that hospital bed that Wood said he had a realization. He no longer wanted to be the slacker who didn’t care about school.

“Underachiever would be the word,” Wood said.

Wood said the hospital stay was a wake-up call. He decided he wanted to do something with his life.

Wood’s foray in campus politics first began last fall when Wood and his vice presidential running mate, Eric Hyde, Lawrence sophomore, created Students for Ron Paul, an organization that supported Paul’s presidential bid. That organization morphed into Students of Liberty.

Wood said he was trying to downplay the Ron Paul connection. The ideology might be similar, but the two groups have little in common.

“I don’t know why, but there’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction to him,” Wood said of the public’s perception of Paul.

Wood said he knows that Students of Liberty faced challenges. Wood said Students of Liberty might not have the financial resources of the other coalitions or a full slate of senators, but Wood still has grand aspirations.

Wood said he had visions of spreading Students of Liberty to other universities, such as universities in Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri.

Wood said he’d like to see an overhauling of campus politics.

“I’m just really tired of people getting in there that don’t really do what they say,” Wood said. “When you see year after year that the same party wins, except for maybe once or twice, there’s no reason to vote.”

Listen to Wood, and he’ll keep talking about making a difference. He’s dreaming big.

He said he’d like to go to law school after college, and maybe even try his hand at local politics.

“Something like city commission at first,” Wood said. “I’d like to move up to mayor, if I could. If I could get to governor…,” Wood said, his voice trailing off into a quick smile.

Still, Wood is realistic and optimistic about the future.

“This is our establishment year,” Wood said about Students of Liberty. “I’d like to win, but on the off chance I don’t, we will be more established next year. And we will have a full slate of senators next year. “

The odds may be stacked against Wood, but he said he’s been in this kind of situation before.

His life, Wood says, “It’s definitely a turnaround story.”