VSA holds two Executive Board candidate debates

Hayley Tsukayama Staff Writer

On April 17, candidates for Vassar Student Association (VSA) Executive Board positions debated for the second time in The Retreat. Candidates had three minutes to respond to individual questions, and one minute was allotted for each to address rebuttals. Much like the first debate on April 12 in the All College Dining Center, there was low student turnout.

When asked how each person envisioned the state of the College in 20 years, candidates spoke to a wide range of issues.

Candidate for VSA President Arjun Agarwala ’10 said that in 20 years he sees Vassar “above Harvard, Yale and Princeton” and that “We must be proactive and essentially try to be the best we can—not only for ourselves, but for the College—because we are a part of the College.” Rob Voigt ’08 said, “The VSA President has dual roles to deal with massive issues…and the way the VSA should do it is by reaching out to students.” Voigt also said that it is important that VSA find smaller issues that they can fix in “a short 10 months” and fix in a sustainable way.

Christopher Binetti ’08 said that “short term goals are great, but long term goals are the whole point.” Binetti said that “there are two fundamental problems on campus”: that the VSA has not stuck up for students enough, and that little is being done to address factionalism on campus.

Sam Charner ’08 said that he wants to watch Vassar become “better academically than we are now, we’re more acceptable than we are now, and that our buildings are much nicer than they are now.” Charner said he plans to accomplish this by “asking underlying questions behind the decisions that happen” to effect a 20-year process. Heidi Genrich ’08 said there are a lot “tiny little baby steps we can take in the next 10 months to affect the change we want to see” and that the way to affect the future of the College is to improve the structures and institutions of VSA now. Candidate Phillip Royce Drake ’10 did not attend either debate.

Albert Apodaca Jr. ’08 and Morgan Warners ’08, both running for the newly created Vice President for Student Life position, expressed a desire to ensure that the position would allow direct student involvement in issues dealing with the Dean of the College. Candidate Sasha Levites ’08 is studying abroad this semester.

Two candidates are now running uncontested: Jimmy Kelly ’09 for Vice President of Activities and Summer’s-Grace Green ’08 for Vice President of Operations. Both reiterated issues in their candidate statements: Kelly wants to foster cooperation between organizations to “maximize the effectiveness of programming,” and Green wants concentrates on the importance of communication with Vassar alumnae/i.

Vince Vincent ’08, registered in the race for Vice President for Activities, withdrew from the race earlier this week. Of the candidates for Vice President on Academics, only Lorette Fisher ’09 was able to attend the debate. Jessica Cho ’08 and Kyle Giunta ’08 are also candidates for the position. Fisher said she would defend the College’s current policy on general requirements, though she is open to debate on the issue. Vice President for Finance candidate Jessika Wong ’08, who spoke to a need for proper fund allocation, was also the only one from her race to attend the debate; candidates Kenneth Simons ’08 and Fania Veksler ’08 are both studying abroad this semester.

Voting, which began on April 18, will continue until 8 p.m. on April 20. A results release party will commence at 1 p.m. in The Retreat on April 21.