The Faculty Senate voted to elect five candidates without opposition to critical senate council offices Tuesday night.

Three of the five candidates took new positions as council chairs, while two others were re-elected to continue their offices. All five candidates ran unopposed.

Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Faculty Senate secretary, and Denise Vrchota, Governance Council chairwoman, were re-elected in landslide victories. Zanish-Belcher was elected unanimously, while Vrchota was elected 57-1.

“Until yesterday, I was thinking about retiring from the senate,” said Vrchota, “but my views have changed.”

She said she had been chairwoman of the governance council for two years and recognized the importance of the council’s role in the Faculty Senate. The council is responsible for the way the senate is organized and helped investigate the role of research at the university last year, she said.

Bill Robinson, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences caucus chair, was elected chairman of the judiciary and appeals council.

“It’s a service I’m happy to do,” Robinson said.

Robinson has been serving on the senate for three years and has served as the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences caucus chair for two years.

He said the judiciary and appeals committee was an important last resort for faculty to redress grievances, a council he had served on prior to the election.

Sedahlia Crase, College of Family and Consumer Sciences senator, was elected chairwoman of the faculty development and administrative relations council.

“I figured this would be a good way to put my long years of experience to leadership,” Crase said, “It’s just a natural sort of thing.”

This year was Crase’s first on the Faculty Senate, and her first time serving in the office. However, she said she was experienced in how the university worked. In her time, she has helped work on a women and minorities task force at the university, Crase said.

Both Robinson and Crase were elected unanimously.

Jack Girton, Faculty Senate president, was elected 55-3 as chairman of the university resource policies and allocations council.

This decision came after his election as an at-large senator from the College of Agriculture. Girton will take his office as senator and chairman after his term as president is finished in May.

“It used to be that when a president was finished with his term, they took them off somewhere and you would never hear from them again,” Girton said.

Girton said he was happy to serve on the committee and had experience in the advisory role the university resource policies and allocations council provides to the provost. The council works with the provost and helps provide advice in preparing budgets, he said.

The newly elected chairpersons will take their offices at the last regular Faculty Senate meeting of the semester on May 4.