Adam Gross is the new president of the junior class. Incidentally, he is also the first president that the class of 2008 has had.
Gross is a junior economics major who came to be the president of his class because "The Undergraduate Student Association Elections Committee (USAEC) Chair asked me if I wanted to run for junior class president, so I did." Despite the circumstances of his election, Gross is focused and directed with his current position. He has found a secretary, junior Tanya Riesbeck, and he is in the process of coordinating a film festival with Geneseo's theatre group Cothurnus.
Working in conjunction with sophomore class president Ryan Lang, he hopes to organize a junior vs. sophomore class challenge to put the overlooked junior and sophomore classes on the radar. "The freshmen have a Mid-Knight Breakfast, and the seniors have their bar crawl and Senior Challenge," he said. "The sophomores and juniors just get lost in the mix somewhere." By aiming the spotlight of these group of students, Gross hopes to give the middle two classes some attention.
Furthermore, Gross would like to put the word out that there are class positions still available. Year after year, many class positions go unfilled. Whether the students' goal is changes to the school or gaining leadership experience, running for office primarily involves collecting a number of signatures from classmates. Gross believes that students still refrain because they are unaware of the opportunity. "Mainly I think it is poor advertising on the part of USAEC; it's their job to advertise elections and the only way I heard about it was word of mouth."
Another reason for the lack of participation, said Gross, could be a lack of cohesion within the classes. Many students assume they are sophomores, and then come up as juniors on Knightweb. "When people are sophomores and juniors, a lot of them don't really know what they are - they have a certain number of credits to be a junior but they plan on graduating with the sophomore class," he explained.
As he works to inspire pride among his classmates and to be a leader of his class, Gross sets an example for all Geneseo students.