Senior Alex Ostermann is the recently sworn in Vice President for Whitewater Student Government (WSG). This year, he is working alongside President Jen Purcell.

“I started working at Career and Leadership Development, and with some people in the student government,” Ostermann said. “I thought it was pretty cool.”

After attending an event for It’s On Us, a program to spread awareness and prevention of sexual assualt, Ostermann’s interest in Student Government grew, leading him to run for a senate position.

“I was the deputy speaker for a while – about a year and a half – and then I ran for vice president,” he said. “Throughout middle school and high school, I was involved in student government and student council. I love the whole student government atmosphere, which led me to run for this position.”

After meeting Purcell and talking about shared interests and passions, Ostermann knew that he and Purcell would make a good team.

“We both have a lot of different experiences at the university, and we’ve gotten to know a lot of different people in different departments,” he said. “We are both really excited to work with all different types of students and WSG to make changes. We’re both really passionate about helping as many students as we can.”

As vice president, Ostermann has plans in action that he hopes to accomplish during his term. Working alongside Purcell, he hopes to keep both of their previous campaign ideas strong.

“A lot of things are in the initial stages,” he said. “The past few weeks have really been focused on organizing. My time has been really full with meetings with our directors, our advisers and people on campus trying to figure out where work has left off from last year and what work we want to do moving forward. Some of the projects we will be working on are things that we talked about during the campaign, which were health, safety and community.”

Outside of WSG, Ostermann is heavily involved on campus. He is the president of the Interfraternity Council, which is the governing body for the male-identifying fraternities on campus. He is also a member of Lambda Chi Alpha, as well as a general member of DREAM (Disability Rights, Education, Activism and Mentoring).

WSG is one of the four shared governance groups on campus, working alongside staff and students to make the campus better year after year.

WSG Senate meetings take place at 7 p.m. every Monday night in UC 259, and Ostermann encourages students to run for a senate position.