Jordan Cuddemi
News Editor
Write-in candidates saved the 2012-2013 Student Assembly executive board.
At the time of the application deadline, Wednesday, April 11 at noon, only 20 applications were handed in to fill the 40 assembly positions.
Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Paul Striffolino said Student Assembly must have at least half the positions filled in order to be able to enact bills, grant funding requests, and revise student organization’s constitutions.
“In order to vote and actually enact bills and provide funding there needs to be a quorum of those positions. A quorum is slightly over half so if there were fewer than half the positions on the assembly than they couldn’t actually function,” Striffolino said.
Student Assembly received exactly half of the applications they needed to proceed with assembly for the 2012-2013 school year. Although it was close, elections were held on the night of Monday, April 16 and eight additional positions were filled through write-ins.
Candidates for write-ins have been sworn in because a student voter wrote their name on the ballot because the student thought they would be a good candidate for the position. “Someone can always write somebody in if they think that [they] would do a better job,” Striffolino said.
“If you were a write-in you may not even realize you were written in,” he added. On Monday night current assembly members made phone calls to the candidates who had the most write-ins to see if they would like to accept the position.
Student Body President Colin Daly said as long as the write-ins, along with petitioning candidates, are in good academic standing with the college, which means the student has a GPA of 2.5 or higher, and are in good judicial standings, they can be eligible for a position.
Although Student Assembly will be in session for at least another year, Daly said if Student Assembly were to stop running “it could have a large negative impact on the voice of the students.”
Senior Non-Traditional Representative Jake Piecuch said it would be a shame. “Student Assembly really does have a powerful voice as to what goes on at this school.” Piecuch said assembly was a driving force behind the dismissal of HB 334, which could have allowed gun-carry on campus.
Piecuch said he is pleased with the 2012-2013 election turnout. “To be honest I think it actually ended up turning out really well.”
Prior to the election, the day before applications were do, Student Assembly had only received 8 total applications. At the Tuesday, April 10 Student Assembly meeting Piecuch said, “We are missing three-fourths of the entire student government.” However, 20 applications were turned in by the deadline.
2015 Class President Chelsea Harris, a write in candidate, said at the last minute she decided not to petition for a spot on her 2015 e-board.
However, she is glad her class supported her and pushed her forwarded to become president. “I saw the ups and downs of student government here and thought I could help improve it,” she said.
2013 Class President Alison Hammell said Student Assembly helps strength the bond between students in each class.
“It is an excellent way to voice opinions of our class and run events and trips to bring the class closer together,” she said.
With out Student Assembly, Hammell said there would be a large impact on the student body. “A lot of the senior events are held by the senior class so if there wasn’t anyone on Student Gov. there wouldn’t be any senior class trips or events,” Hammell said.
“I don’t think the faculty would have time to do all of that work on top of everything else they have to do,” she added.
Next years Student Assembly positions are held by the following candidates:
Student Body President Katelyn Williams, won with 257 votes; Student Body Vice President Kelly Welch, with 182 votes; Student Trustee Eric Grady, with 290 votes; and University System Student Body Representative (USSBR) Allie Bedell, with 15 write-in votes.
The 2013 Class President will be Alison Hammell; Vice President, Kaleigh Liupakka; Treasurer, Natalie Savas; Secretary, Kassandra Tenney; and class representative positions will be held by Chelsea Clouse and Kristen Rankin. There are still three open rep positions for the class of 2013.
The 2014 Class President will be Jaclyn Efraimson; Vice President, Aaron Testa; Treasurer, Erin Donnelly; Secretary, Sara Kelley; and class representative positions will be held by Meghan Healy, Tyler King and Jeff Bradley. There is still one open rep position for the class of 2014
The 2015 Class President will be Chelsea Harris; Vice President, Caitlin Licence; Secretary, Ryan Serivano; Treasurer, Katherine Carolan; and class representative positions will be held by Sean Ballard, Jessica French, Sarah McCluskey and Allison Picone.
The incoming freshman class of 2016, will hold their elections in the third week of September.
Jordan Cuddemi can be contacted jcuddemi@keene-equinox.com.