Catherine Yenne’s calendar is an assortment of colorful boxes that schedule her day hour-by-hour. It leaves little room for any blank spaces, but that is the way Yenne likes it. She lives to fill in those spaces.
“I enjoy it. I get kind of antsy if I don’t have enough to do,” Yenne said.
Yenne, a French, political science and international studies major, is one of the latest senators to be elected to the ASUI Senate along with six other students earlier this month.
Yenne already had a couple months of experience in that role after she took up a senator position in the midst of four vacancies at the start of the school year.
Now that her role is solidified, Yenne said one of her main goals is to create living group video reports that would inform groups that ASUI does not already reach out to — including students living in family housing and off-campus — about upcoming events.
Yenne said fellow senator Michael Lejardi, who was appointed at the same time as Yenne but not reelected, came up with the idea and presented it to her early on during their time in the senate. She said she is working on the project with him and ASUI Communications Board Chair, Sarah Solomon.
“I’m really excited to continue working on that project and hopefully get the ball rolling,” Yenne said.
This is not Yenne’s first time in a leadership position, nor is it her only current position. Yenne served as secretary treasurer for the Associated Student Body at Vallivue High School in Nampa her senior year, where she helped plan homecoming and prom activities and budgets.
From there, Yenne said it was an easy step to UI, where she said she had a family of alumni. But Yenne said it was also Director of University Honors Program Alton Campbell who convinced Yenne that UI was the place for her.
“He was kind of the guy that convinced me that U of I would be where I wanted to be, and I haven’t looked back since. I really love it here,” Yenne said.
The two have known each other for three years. Campbell said it was Yenne’s essays that stood out to him her freshman year, calling her writing “unusually good.”
“She came in civic-minded, with engagement, wanting to make a difference,” Campbell said.
He said Yenne’s confidence has grown since her freshman year, something both Yenne and her friend, Alyssa Baugh attested to.
Baugh, a self-described introvert, and Yenne both lived in McCoy Hall their freshman years. Though Baugh said she and Yenne share little in common politically and academically, they were brought together by the Honors Program, where they both served as Honors Ambassadors, and have been friends ever since.
“As long as I’ve known her, she’s always been very involved,” Baugh said.
Baugh said she would vote for Yenne in the latest ASUI elections — a first time for Baugh, who said Yenne is the only person she would ever get political for.
Yenne described herself as shy, especially her freshman year when she said ASUI was definitely not on her radar. But as she began to branch out in her personal life, Yenne branched out in other ways to get involved at UI.
Yenne spent her entire sophomore year in Lyon, France, where she studied French and European politics.
“That was really hard going to another country where you don’t speak the language totally fluently,” Yenne said.
But Yenne said she found relief from unfamiliarity when she introduced herself to the director of her program in Lyon, who told Yenne she had taught at UI before.
Yenne said her experiences abroad gave her footing to branch out this year and apply for the senate.
When Yenne is not busy working on the Senate Finance Committee, attending Honors Leadership Council meetings, working as deputy campaign manager for local political campaigns or as the Vice President of Idaho Young Democrats, Yenne said she looks forward to the end of the day, when she can hang out in the Scholars LLC building with her friends.
“One of my favorite parts of the day is coming back home and we all sit in front of the fireplace and just talk and do homework and I really enjoy that,” Yenne said.
Taylor Nadauld can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @tnadauldarg