Penn State students voting in Wednesday's Undergraduate Student Government election chose more than just a new set of student leaders — they determined which issues students thought were most important at Penn State.

At the end of the ballot, on both the online and paper formats, students were asked to answer 10 referendum questions covering topics relating to campus security, shared governance and a raise in the Student Activity Fee.

"It is input we take very seriously and we welcome that input," said Eddie Elizondo, the outgoing University Park Allocations Committee chairman.

"We need to conduct further research and poll a larger amount of the student body," he added.

"It was good to have it (the referendum) on the ballot with voter turn out as good as it was," USG president-elect Justin Zartman said.

Zartman was particularly interested in student feedback about the 24-hour dormitory lockdown proposal. Regardless of the several incidents that occurred this year dealing with dormitory security, 58 percent of the students voted against implementing an all-day lockdown.

Besides the 24-hour lockdown question, student government leaders were very concerned with the question pertaining to shared governance. Shared governance is a proposed requirement that all student-affecting committees have a student on their decision board.

According to the results of the referendum, an overwhelming number of students, 75 percent, agreed shared governance was important at Penn State.

Geoff Grivner, student trustee, gave some depth to the issue.

"The basis for that question is really at the University of Wisconsin. According to its by-laws, students must be involved with all commitments and decisions made at the university that will affect students," Grivner said.

Here at Penn State, he said, that the law is informal.

"It's done out of courtesy by the governor. We'd like to set up a lot more formalized system," Grivner said.

Grivner didn't agree with the voters' opinion that the position he now holds should be elected rather than governor-appointed, however.

"I went through a lengthy interview process . . . to obtain that position," he said. "Having the position be appointed allows for a much more objective student trustee."

The question asking students if they would support a raise in the Student Activity Fee also met with negative results. Even though UPAC ran out of funds this year, 33 percent of the students did not feel that a dollar increase was necessary.

"I think the demands upon the fee are tremendous," Elizondo said. "We're looking for several different ways to better that for next year."

Although they have no direct impact on the action of next year's student leaders, the questions serve as suggestions for university improvements, Grivner said.

"It helps to set an agenda for next year's USG," he said.

The questions themselves were written and proposed by the USG Senate with the help of UPAC. After questioning every student group, the committee chose the best 10 questions from 25 proposed questions.

"We asked them to send us referendum questions that they felt needed to be addressed. The Senate chose 10 that were best representative for the students," said South Halls Senator Erik Ives.

Overall, Elizondo felt the referendum questions were appropriate and successful.

"I think that 'yes' and 'no' weren't the only two options on the referendum ballot. The effort is to get that information out there," he said.