Ousmane Kabre was named Student Senate President after this year’s elections beating out two other candidates.

Kabre, a Liberal Arts Transfer student, was named President on May 2. He had 38.8 percent of the vote just narrowly defeating Brittny Campbell, who had 37.9 percent of the vote.

Kabre accepted the nomination humbly as he thanked the people he believed in him, he said.

“Sometimes when people get elected they forget who really elected them and they don’t really thank them,” he said. “To me, it’s important for me to thank them; the people really elected me.”

He’ll have some work to do, though. 61 percent of the voters did not vote for him. He also faces the challenge of further developing a relationship between the Student Senate and a student body that has been distant in years past. He said he plans on starting to change that with addressing non-degree credit students, who currently cannot vote in senate elections. Only degree credit students paying student activity fees can vote in the elections.

“Any student at Madison College should have the right to vote and to elect their officers as well as their senators,” Kabre said.

Kabre already has things in mind for his term, he said. He’s looking at making the OneCard the official bus pass for students. This would hinder students from taking the pass and selling it.

Also, according to Kabre, there are a couple of reoccurring financial issues at the college. “We have two main issues at the college almost every semester – the food services, which is really expensive for the Madison College students to really afford and also with textbooks that are really expensive,” Kabre said.

To solve these issues, he will be meeting with other senators to have more online textbooks available to reduce textbook prices for the college. Also, he said he will be meeting with the senators to establish a plan to lower food prices as well.

He also said that he intends to work with Devin Cook, vice president of state and local government elect to update the Student Rights and Responsibilities and make them more clear.

Cook is not the only senator from 2011-12 that Kabre will try to work with. He said he intends to work with Campbell as well.

“I’m going to thank her in public for really being a great opponent and also really contributing for the Senate,” he said. “I’m going to see if we can really work together in order to make the Senate a good student organization.”

Michael Schram, also a Liberal Arts Transfer student, had 13.6 percent of the vote to come in third for the Presidential race. Write-in candidates received 4.1 percent of the vote and 6.3 percent did not vote in the category.