Triem and Growney plan for a blue and gold-filled year

The new Associated Students of MSU (ASMSU) president and vice president spent hours over the summer learning the responsibilities of their roles. Now, President Lenny Triem and Vice President Finn Growney are working toward fulfilling their campaign promises and ensuring ASMSU serves students in the best ways it can. 

ASMSU is the student government on campus and is made up of an executive, legislative and judicial branch. Together, the seven justices, two executives and 21 senators manage student fees and support student programs and services.

Last semester, Triem and Growney ran on several campaign promises, including improving club funding processes and engaging with local government to pursue affordable housing policies. Last spring semester, the student body elected the pair to lead the executive team for the 2025-26 academic year.

Triem is completing his senior year at MSU, studying both microbiology and music. He served as an at-large senator on the ASMSU Senate for two years before running for the executive team as the presidential candidate. 

“Being on the senate has given me the opportunity to build some amazing relationships with some great people, and also to learn a lot more about how a representative body like that functions,” Triem said.

While the presidential role is still new territory for him, he said it has already provided leadership experience that he hopes will carry over into his post-grad life. 

“Being in the president's role this year has been a relatively unique opportunity because I haven't had a lot of jobs where I am in charge of a lot of people,” Triem said. “It's really widened my scope of what I'm looking at in terms of leadership, potential management, [that] sort of thing.”

Growney is a sophomore industrial engineering major. Before joining Triem on his campaign, Growney served for one year as an at-large senator.

“I joined [ASMSU] originally because I wanted to see how the organization functioned,” Growney said. “I wanted to see how I could impact campus in a positive way, and the opportunity to run for [vice] president was just an opportunity to do that on a bigger level.”

Over the summer, Triem and Growney worked a combined 40 hours a week preparing ASMSU for the school year. According to Triem, most of this time was spent learning the ins and outs of the student government.

“It was just learning how each one of the little arms and programs works, how the money flows, how the people get the services done,” he said. 

Growney said they also spent the summer attending over 150 meetings, a few of which were with student governments from other universities. 

“That was really helpful to see what other governments provide and seeing if we can implement any of those — and sharing some ideas of our own,” Growney said. 

Growney and Triem said that they hope to implement several ideas from these meetings within ASMSU, such as furthering MSU’s involvement in local politics and expanding free legal services for students.

ASMSU offers services for student clubs and organizations, including logo designs, promotional content and advertising. 

While these services are available to all Bobcats who pay student fees, another one of ASMSU's primarily functions is to help student-run organizations get started. 

“One of the greatest things that ASMSU has done is it is active as an incubator for programs that students want to see on campus,” Triem said. “Increasing the cost-effectiveness for our programs and increasing the breadth of our services is something we're focused on this year.”

One of the first school-wide events that ASMSU put on this semester was the Homecoming celebration. One new addition to the celebration was a drone show that Growney coordinated with the help of the Residence Hall Association.

Growney said the event was a success with 507 people in attendance and many more watching the show from their dorm rooms. 

Triem and Growney encouraged all students to become involved at MSU, specifically through the student government. 

“There are opportunities to get involved and I think it's excellent to take them,” Triem said. “It’s personally rewarding and it gives you a greater connection to the University.”

“Student body government is all about impact,” Growney said. “It’s not about popularity, it's not about putting on your resume, it's about people wanting to make a difference.”

To learn more about ASMSU, visit its website https://www.montana.edu/asmsu/.