Despite near impeachment and a year of much hostility from the Undergraduate Student Government Senate, USG President Janyne Althaus and Vice President Bill Novick believe they accomplished most of their campaign goals.

"We spent the year finding out things that didn't work," Althaus said. "Hopefully someone will learn from our failures."

Althaus and Novick's terms end April 2 when the out-going president and vice president relinquish their power at a transition dinner to the newly elected executives. Elections take place today.

Their main platform goals included developing a department of safety, interpreting the open budget and developing a more conversant relationship with the administration. Celebrating diversity and enhancing academics were also discussed during their campaign.

In the past year, the USG executives developed the safety department and worked to open Pollock Library and computer labs for 24 hours.

While they promised during their campaign to explore new tactics to open the University's budget -- at the time a controversial and much discussed issue carried over from the previous administration -- Althaus and Novick said they looked into it and believed it would not do anything for students.

"The questions people are asking are not going to be found in that budget," Althaus said. "The courts failed, administrators failed, the legislators are mixed on it. The numbers are there but you can't find solutions by it or interpret it."

"We stated we would analyze the open budget and we analyzed it," Novick said.

They believe the Department of Safety to be their biggest accomplishment. "We worked the hardest on this," Novick said.

Director for USG's Department of Safety Robyn Walls said the department's accomplishments included: conducting a week of safety programs, obtaining a seat on the Escort Service Advisory Board and the card-key access committee, and improving lighting.

She added the department had a freshman orientation program on sexual assault, participated in the Organization of Town Independent Students' Town Day, helped with the OTIS night map and co-sponsored the "Take Back the Night March."

Walls said in the future the department should concentrate on continuing educational programming, improving facilities -- especially for people with disabilities -- and working with other organizations.

Althaus and Novick agreed the diversity issue required more attention.

"More attention should have been paid to this," Novick said. "This is definitely something that should be considered for the future."

Althaus said she did not re-establish the USG Department of Human Relations because there was little interest and it would duplicate other organizations.

Last semester the Senate tried twice to impeach Althaus because of the way she selected nominees for the Presidential Search Committee. The senate also tried to impeach Althaus for allegedly accessing privileged student information to determine four students' senate eligibility.

Althaus and Novick agreed that coming up for possible impeachment made it more difficult to work with students.

"We had to deal with petty politics," Novick said. "It was a distraction for us to accomplish our goals. It is unfortunate that the Senate chose to waste its time on such stupid things and not work with student issues."

Student leaders had differing opinions about Althaus and Novick's terms.

Senate President Ron Marlow said credit has to be given to Althaus and Novick for accomplishing most of their platform goals, but said they never understood the senate's role in USG.

"They never made an honest attempt to understand the role the senate has to play in the overall functioning of USG," he said.

The University Student Advisory Board liaison for the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments Ron Fischer said Althaus and Novick addressed important student concerns but needed to be more controversial.

"In the sense of being radical, they weren't controversial," Fischer said. "In some ways they should have been so they could have tackled more issues. They laid back on a couple of issues."

Althaus said although administrators work slowly it was easier to negotiate with administrators.

"I was disappointed how slow they work but they have other issues," Althaus said. "You have to keep pushing and nudging."

Althaus said she and Novick created a better relationship with administrators by working with them rather than working behind their backs.

"We opened up doors with administrators by establishing an honest relationship with them," Althaus said. "We would agree or disagree with them but we would not be sneaky behind their backs or lie to them."

Administrators said Althaus and Novick were easy to deal with and addressed important student issues such as academics and safety.

"I think they accomplished a number of things they set out to accomplish," said University Director of Religious Affairs Thomas Poole, who is adviser for the USG senate. "The bottom line to evaluate anyone's candidacy is if student life was improved.

"In my relations with both Janyne and Bill, they have been positive, respectful and cooperative," said Melvyn Klein, director of Student Unions and Activities.

Althaus said she hopes the next USG president and vice president will contact other universities more often to generate ideas.

"We tend to think we have all the possible solutions," Althaus said. "Other universities have other ideas and solutions and other administrations don't make certain issues a problem."

Althaus plans to attend a Big 10 medical school next fall and Novick is traveling to the Middle and Far East.