Ashley Reynolds, a third-year risk management and insurance and finance student, will be the 2026-27 student body treasurer. This will be Reynolds’ second term as treasurer after serving in the role for the 2025-26 term.
In her first term, Reynolds, along with the senate finance committee, implemented a partial funding system for student organizations to make the funds last longer. According to Reynolds, she feels the partial funding system worked well this year, and next year she plans to focus on fine-tuning it and making it more transparent.
“One of the things I want to do is keep a tracker online of the things that we partially funded and why,” Reynolds said. “Minus student information and all that stuff, but why we partially funded something so that other students can look at it and reference (it) and try not to make the same mistakes.”
Reynolds has been working alongside current Student Body President Courtney Tkacs to get the student activity fee raised in order to get more funding for student organizations. Reynolds said she will continue to work on this in her second term but is waiting to see how Tkacs’ proposal to create a Russell House auxiliary fee will go with the board of trustees first.
If passed, it would require incoming first-year students to pay a fee that would go to the Russell House, which is currently paid for using the student activity fee. This would allow the money from the student activity fee to go toward student organization funding instead, according to Reynolds.
Reynolds said in her second term, she will continue to hold treasurer’s workshops for student organization leaders to help with funding and to connect with them.
“Continuing to have treasurer’s workshops, kind of getting my face out there, talking to people, just helps build those relationships in general,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds and the finance committee will continue to share the responsibility of student organization funding with the Student Organization Funding Assistance Board, which was initiated for the 2025-26 school year.
The board is run by Matt Hinds, and according to Reynolds, they have a great working relationship. In order to continue that, Reynolds wants to work to maintain constant communication between them.
Having a year of experience and less of a learning curve, Reynolds said for her next term, she wants to focus on funding outside of student organizations.
“Spending Student Government money on specific initiatives is also important to me,” Reynolds said. “We're really fortunate to have great relationships with our vendors, so we tend to get a lot of stuff donated, which is really great, but finding other ways to spend that money responsibly as well.”
The new executive members who will be in office with her for the 2026-27 term said they are excited to work with her due to her experience and knowledge from already being treasurer.
Kiki D’Apolito, the new speaker of the student senate, said Reynolds knows how to work a room and lead, which are skills she would love to learn from Reynolds.
Myron Harris, who will be taking on the role of student body vice president, said he is excited to get to know Reynolds more, as well as learning about the Student Government funding system from her.
“I will be the first to say I'm not the most expert on (funding),” Harris said. “I'm excited to get to see her input, get to see her side of things, and get to understand who she truly is as a person and what goes into making her decisions.”
According to new Student Body President Cole Rotondo, he is looking forward to seeing where Reynolds’ experience takes her in her second term as treasurer and getting to grow with her as executive members.
“She came in with no Student Government experience, but she was able to use her creative mindset to put forward really good goals and initiatives,” Rotondo said.
Reynolds will be re-sworn in as treasurer at an inauguration held on March 19 at 5:30 p.m. in the Rutledge Chapel.