The last meeting was fast approaching and as Student Senate President Zach Adams watched the session slowly coming to a close, senators filed dozens of bills online, many of which he said he had never considered.

“Just as I thought we were winding down, the Student Senate closed out our session with a bang, and [we have] a report from the Office of Academic Affairs to show for it,” Adams, a senior in industrial systems engineering and economics, said.

Adams’ platform was “no bull.” He wanted to run, he said, because he had been a senator since his freshman year, and he wanted to make a change.

According to Adams, one of the biggest issues on his platform that he wanted to achieve was working with administrators.

“I was surprised at how responsive various administrators were to some of our ideas for reform,” he said.

Adams said when working with Thomas Conway, dean of the undergraduate academic program, Nina Allen, chair of the faculty senate, Jerry Barker, director of student affairs, and other administrators, he felt like the Senate was productive.

Adams said he found that the most effective way to advocate for the issues the Senate was pushing was “not through battling, but collaboration.”

Harrison Gilbert, student senator emeritus of the 87th session, agreed.

“[Adams] established good relationships with administrators and that was key in pushing student issues in terms of the football task force and trying to extend tailgating hours,” he said.

Gilbert said before he was a senator, he used to sometimes question Student Government’s effectiveness in advocating for students, but said after becoming a senator, he realized how much SG advocates for students, especially staying in meetings late at night debating.

“Zach was an effective leader,” Gilbert said. “He established relationships with the Senate and gained the trust and respect of the senators, as well as the administration. That’s what created the environment that allowed for us to be heard and to push the issues we felt were important.”

According to Adams, the student body is a large group of people, and it is difficult for one SG official to reach out to every student that has different concerns.

Sen. Greg Doucette, the incoming Student Senate President, said he believed Adams was a role model for many senators and said one of his greatest successes was helping to speed up the appropriations process. Another was helping Doucette gather enough students and convincing Krispy Kreme to donate 30 dozen doughnuts within minutes in order to welcome the men’s basketball team after Florida’s loss.

“He’s good at delegating and getting people to set up and do things that they didn’t think they were capable of doing,” Doucette, a junior in computer science, said.

Doucette said Adams has a lot of charisma and is very friendly and outgoing, which gets people to loosen up and enjoy what they’re doing.

Gilbert said the Senate accomplished a lot this year, including the textbook prices act, an energy issue support plan and academic policy revisions to name a few.

“This session of the Senate did a lot more in terms of policies that would actually affect students rather than the inner conflicts that have been seen in the past,” he said.

The 86th session passed many resolutions throughout the year, including ones to redesign GER requirements, which extended the First Year College course repeat to students of all years and the drop date.

Gilbert said one thing he used to joke about a lot was to say the Student Senate looked like the British House of Commons, and said sometimes Adams could have come down harder on the senators and put his fist down.

“As much as we did accomplish this year, it’s maybe given some direction into what can be accomplished next year,” he said.

Adams said despite the pressure and late nights that cut into his sleep and studying because he worried about certain controversial issues, he never once regretted his decision to run for Senate president.

“I was inspired by educated senators to work harder throughout my term and my passion continued to grow through our last meeting,” he said.

Adams said although he believes the Senate had a great year, there are improvements that can be taken into account for later years.

“One area that always has room for improvement is publicity,” he said. “The next session must make better use of our sandwich boards and visit more student organizations when we are proposing changes such as the ticket policy.”

Adams said another challenge this year’s Senate faced were situations such as the “elections debacle,” which delayed election results from being released, that would cloud the good Senate had done. Adams said the only way to see that the Senate is picking the right battles is to hear back from the constituents.

According to Will Quick, student body president, that is something that the Senate worked on and passed a bill that Doucette wrote under Adams’ leadership, which provided next year’s Senate meetings with a comment period before the meetings started for students to voice any concerns they may have

“The Senate needs to continue to improve upon making the average student feel more comfortable about coming in,” he said.

Quick said one quality that marked Adams’ leadership was patience.

“He kept his opinion to himself and was a little more concerned about the overall welfare of the Senate, developments and overall people in it,” he said.

Adams admitted that was one of his biggest challenges.

“One challenge as president was to maintain composure and objectivity in the fact of the most controversial legislation,” he said. “I hope that my opinions were never translated through my words or expression as I was prescribed to remain neutral on every bill.”

According to Adams, he is only allowed to vote when there is a tie.

“My emotions did show at times, as I had to quiet any senator that was out of order,” he said.

Despite the amount of work he has done, Adams said Doucette will have his work cut out for him.

“There are always student concerns in a body of over 30,000 students, so the Senate must never become complacent or think that its job is done,” he said. “There are always new topics to address, and there’s always room for improvement.”