Kaveh Sadeghian ’12 and Molly Bulman ’12 won the Student Assembly presidential and vice presidential election Thursday.
Sadeghian and Bulman won the election with 56 percent of the vote, while runners up David Alpert ’13 and Tam Middleton ’14 took 41 percent of the vote. There were more votes cast for gender-neutral housing and STI testing referendums than for SA president. Both referendums passed by large majorities.
“I am so thankful to everyone who supported us, and [I am] relieved and excited to get started on everything,” Sadeghian said. “I am glad that with this election, continuity will be established in the sense that we will now be able to continue projects that we started last year. We will be able to hit the ground running.”
In regard to David Alpert, Sadeghian admired him for his resolve to run for SA president as a sophomore, and looked forward to talking with him to meld ideas.
Alpert was equally supportive of his opponents. He said he hopes Kaveh will adopt his stance on academic policy changes and govern with a strong voice of leadership. When discussing future involvement in the SA, Alpert said he needed to decompress first before making any more political decisions.
“I would like to congratulate Kaveh and Molly. We knew going into this it was going to be a tough campaign- to win going against an incumbent,” Alpert said. “We ran a campaign that was different from what the College usually sees. And I would have preferred a different result, but I think we did well, and I’m proud of how we came together.”
Over the past week, Sadeghian was accused of violating the “Bribery of a Voter” clause in the Student Assembly Code. As a result, the campaign was temporarily suspended for 48 hours. The decision was quickly overturned by the Student Assembly Review Board-less than 10 hours after the initial of the sanctions were handed down.
“I am so glad that Molly and I did not give in to the drama,” Sadeghian said. “We kept it relevant and stayed calm. This is a good taste of what next year has to be like.”
When discussing upcoming projects, Sadeghian made it clear he wants to start right away. He noted a fundraising campaign for the Diversity Department of initiatives. This initiative will create a reserve account that will provide anonymous support to students from low-income families. The first fundraising event will be, the “I am WM” 5K on April 10.
“Molly and I are ready to push for more tangible reforms,” Sadeghian said. “We want the SA to be more accessible to students.”
Transparency was another important pillar of Sadeghian’s platform. Before the end of the year, Sadeghian wants SA blogs to report both student feedback and meeting minutes. He also wants to publish SA reports from senate and executive meetings in addition to beginning to make the SA more accessible by publishing the newest information on upcoming reforms, specifically gender-neutral housing.
“I really want to look at the gender neutral referendum and report on how the Student Assembly is pushing that referendum through,” Sadeghian said.
In addition, Sadeghian plans to implement the HARK network before the end of the year. The HARK network is a student-based network that advertises events, textbook sales, carpools and jobs. Sadeghian believes the HARK network will increase student accessibility and interaction.
“By the first day of the next academic year, I want students to be able to use the HARK network,” Sadeghian said.
Sadeghian will also be working on a Williamsburg externship program, which will place a representative from the College within the local government as a more flexible and less political version of the Richmond internship program.
“We [are] already accepting applications for this program, and Kate Hoving, the Communications Director of Williamsburg, is going to help us direct the program,” Bulman said.
Additional results appear below:
Class of 2012
President— Stephanie McGuire
VP of Advocacy— Amanda Brazzel
Senators— Zach Marcus, Michael Wagner, Ben Huber (write-in), Joe Mehan (write-in)
Class of 2013
President— Tess DeAtley
VP of Advocacy— Morgan Dyson
VP of Social Affairs— Lemondre Watson
Treasurer— Logan Scott
Secretary— Alexis VeraCruz
Senators— Ryan McManus, Grace Colby, Noah Kim, Tyler Johnson
Class of 2014
President— Tony Hanagan
VP of Advocacy— Alex Comerford
VP of Social Affairs— Megan McCarthy
Treasurer— Brett Prestia
Secretary— Amanda Morrow
Senators— Chase Koontz, Matthew Paganussi, Dallen McNerney, John Woo
Honor Council—Class of 2013
KevIn Mahoney