Incumbents Valerie Hopkins ’09 and Zach Pilchen ’09 were declared Student Assembly President and Vice President last night after winning a landslide victory with over 70 percent of the student vote.
p. Their platform focused on building on progress made over the past year and continuing it in the coming year.
“We’re going to continue to try to focus on student empowerment,” Hopkins said during a celebratory gathering of all SA election winners at the Library Tavern last night.
p. “So many things have happened this year that we could never have foreseen, so a big thing we want to make sure we do is get a bigger student voice, not only in the committee that selects the president, but getting students to actually write criteria for the selection of the president,” Hopkins said.
p. The reason for the change in positions — last year Pilchen was president and Hopkins vice president — is because both wanted to make a statement that titles do not matter to either of them.
“We approached this as a co-presidency. It doesn’t feel any different to us,” Hopkins said. She is the first female president since 2002.
p. Running against Hopkins and Pilchen were Adam Rosen ’09 and Emily Nuñez ’09.
p. “We ran a great race for two transfer students up against incumbents,” Rosen said. ”We exceeded expectations.”
Many positions ran uncontested, and the majority were secured by incumbents.
p. There was some controversy surrounding the Class of 2010 senator elections after an anonymous e-mail was sent to all class members the night before, outlining reasons why the incumbent senators shouldnot be reelected.
p. The e-mail listed Orlando Watson, an incumbent who was not reelected, as ranking last in the latest Flat Hat Senate Report Card.
p. There were close races, like the one for Class of 2011 president, where incumbent Jazmine Piña narrowly beat opponent Yael Gilboa with 54 percent of the vote.
p. The green fees referendum easily passed with 85 percent, adding $15 a semester to student fees. The Save-A-Professor referendum passed with 83 percent.