Freshmen Class Council takes office

Christine Vines Guest Writer

After 473 ballots were tallied for the Fall 2007 Vassar Student Association (VSA) elections, freshmen Joseph Martinez, Elizabeth Anderson, Charlie Kuder and Kwesi Sey were elected to the Class of 2011 Council.

Students chose Martinez as their President, Anderson as Vice President, Kuder as Secretary, and Sey as Treasurer. The first Freshman Council meeting on Friday afternoon, two days after elections took place.

“All in all I believe that the elections went very smoothly this year,” said the Board of Elections Chair and Vice President for Operations Summer’s-Grace Green ’09. “From the technical aspects such as the proper and efficient performance of the software, to the publicity of the election's process with the election dates, rules and regulations, we tried to make sure that 2011 had the best voting experience.” Campus elections have been plagued with technical issues for the past few years. For last year’s VSA executive council elections, computer problems delayed result announcements a day.

Many students participated in the election, both as voters and as administrators. Eight presidential candidates, five vice presidential candidates, 30 dorm representatives and five committee specific representative candidates ran for positions.

“There seemed to be a great deal of competition in the races this year,” said VSA president Sam Charner ’08. “With turnout at around 70 percent, I am very happy with the way elections went. I have met [Martinez] and I am sure he will be an excellent president of the Class of 2011.” Charner added that Martinez benefits from a “great class council, and they seem like they will do a good job this year. They are all just getting started and I am excited to see what happens in the coming year.”

Martinez was thankful for the opportunity to represent his class on the VSA Council. He said he made the decision to run only after being invited to sit in on a VSA Council meeting early in the semester.

“At this point,” said Martinez, “I had no intention of running, but when I sat in on the meeting, I realized how big of an impact the VSA Council has on student life at Vassar.”

“It’s a huge commitment, a huge undertaking. In high school, student council organizes pizza parties, but here at Vassar, the VSA has a budget well over half a million dollars and it is our responsibility to represent the interests of other people.”

Martinez pressed this point, emphasizing that his job is “to speak for the freshman class. So far, there’s been a general consensus among people I’ve spoken with that they want a simple way to get in touch with the VSA, share an issue and get a response.”

His goals thus far are to sit in on at least one standing committee, to seek the advice of the experienced class presidents before him and to keep communication open.

“I want people to know that if they have a problem with Campus Dining, with the Shared Bike Program, with anything that they can shoot me an e-mail and know that I’ll get back to them,” said Martinez. “If I get a Facebook wall post about some issue on campus, you’re going to get a wall post back.”

Anderson also has experience from the student government at her high school. “My senior year I served on the executive student council and served as the school treasurer,” she said. “Vassar is an amazing place and I am dedicated to making our four years
here a memorable time for all of us. I am dedicated to making this an enjoyable four years for our class.”

Martinez encourages the student body to come to Council meetings. “I think it’s so important that students know they are the VSA. If they have any issue, they can come talk to any of the four of us at any time.”

Green believes that the freshmen made a well-informed decision for their officers this year.

“We were all very pleased with the interest the freshmen showed in making informed choices when choosing their candidates,” said Green, “including the large turnout that we had for the first-ever Freshman Presidential Forum. I believe that for them, this is the beginning of a solid foundation at Vassar.”