Crowd gathers in Retreat for election announcement

Fabian Arzuaga Staff Writer

Lured by 24 feet of sandwiches, a few gallons of soda, and the hunger to know which Vassar Student Association (VSA) candidates would hold office next year, hundreds of students filled the Retreat on Tuesday night April 13 for the announcement of VSA election results.

Online voting began at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 14 and closed 24 hours later. Voting was briefly interrupted when a power surge took down the VSA server on Monday afternoon.

Students elected Rick Rodems '06, current Raymond House President, to the position of VSA President.
“It's a big job. Thankfully we have a strong executive board to work with next year,” said Rodems after the announcement of his victory.

VSA election officials said there were about 1,500 votes casted, a 59 percent voter turnout rate. They also cite that this is approximately a ten percent increase from last year.

After 40 minutes of sandwich snacking and serenading by the a capella group the Night Owls, VSA election staff announced the winners of all 96 position and committee openings for next year.

VSA executive board winners, the five officers who oversee the entire VSA, were announced at the close of the hour-long event: Kelsey Woods '06 as Vice President, Laureen Cantwell '06 as Secretary, David Applbaum '06 as Treasurer, and Rebecca Worthington '06 as Academic Executive.

Current VSA President Joe Wildfire '05 also expressed disappointment to students who discarded the fifteen-page VSA pamphlet “Vassar In Brief: Your Unofficial Guide to Student Government, Committee Structure, and Administrative Organization.

“You can't recycle staples, Vassar,” said Wildfire, referring to numerous copies found in recycling bins.
The creation of the pamphlet was an outcome of accusations about poor transparency and communication between VSA officers and students after the Town Meeting with Dean of the College J.J. Jackson.

The pamphlet contain contact information for the 2004-2005 VSA council and describes the functions of each administrative committee that has a student representative.

The information guides were distributed to students' mailboxes.

“The hardest thing every year is communication,” said Rodems. “The [executive] board gave out a great resource with these pamphlets to improve transparency and communication at Vassar.”