President
Forrest Regan ‘14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“It has a lot to do with working with students and college administration and being the liaison for both parties.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I served on the SA Executive Committee for my entire junior year as director of public relations, so I know what it’s like to work so closely on such a high-pressure team. I began working for SA as the treasurer for Academic Affairs Committee. That’s how I learned what purchase orders and check requests are. This year, I learned a lot about college administration as well as the student body.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“One thing that I want to do is see if SA Executive Committee can be a part of Main Street Fun Fest, which is a part of [Resident Assistant] training. It gives everyone a really good view of what Main Street has to offer and what businesses would like to provide for students. I was really surprised last fall when I went as an RA by how much the Main Street businesses would like to be a part of our school.”
Vice President
Katie Becker ’14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“The position is pretty crucial in the College Senate especially. It’s the SA VP with the student senators that really represent the students in that forum. Besides that, the position is all about supporting the president and the other executive board members. Of course, all those board members represent other organizations on campus. It’s directly representative within college senate and indirectly representative through other organizations.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I’ve been on the College Senate since I was a sophomore, so I have experience in that body. Also, I think generally I am a really hardworking person and if my name is on something I am going to give it 100 percent. I’m also a pretty social person. I’m hoping that I get to talk with different people if I get the position.”
If elected, what do you hope to change or improve?
“I want to continue to develop a few policies that [SA Vice President] Justin Shapiro already has going right now. For me, the [Student Opinion of Faculty Instruction is] a big issue personally. That is where the student body gets its say within the teaching arena. Right now they don’t really serve as a good measure of anything. They aren’t really taken seriously. We need to find a way to make SOFIs count because they play a huge role. Other than that, I know medical amnesty has been a big issue. In the short term, the student activity fee referendum is coming up. I want to continue that and have people get out and vote. The organizations need some love and funding.”
Director of Student Programming
Alexander Clark ’14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and community?
“One of the main functions of SA director of student programming is they run Activities Commission; they are the chair of the Activities Commission. So, they run the meetings, make sure everyone is doing their job, and the Activities Commission programs the really fun activities on campus that students enjoy. I am personally the KINO coordinator this year. So I show movies on campus, but there are more things done on campus done by the Activities Commission like concerts. There is also contemporary forum, which brings in speakers and there’s arts and exhibits – there are a lot of positions. How SA director of student programming helps campus mainly I think is not only serving on SA [executive board] which is also very important, but also through leading Activities Commission by putting on quality events on campus.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I’ve been on Activities Commission since my freshman year. I have experience from that and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I’ve seen good programmers, bad programmers, that kind of thing. I know what needs to be done for events to go smoothly. Also, I’m really passionate about Activities Commission, it is my favorite; I love it. Some of my favorite memories from Geneseo have been from Activities Commission – it’s a great experience and I really like it so that’s why I’m running. I think I’ll do a good job because I have the passion and experience to make it work.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“There is not really me changing but we just ratified a new constitution that institutes a new membership. It is called ‘general membership’ and it falls below the executive board and programming board, so that wasn’t really my change, but what I want to do is ensure that the first year of having general membership will set a good example for the next years. I want it to be something that is actually really important and does a really good job. If the first year that happens, then other years will follow, hopefully. That’s kind of a change, even though I did not implement that I want to make sure it continues. I want to improve … Activities Commission branding. A lot of people don’t know what Activities Commission is on campus and that’s a problem. We do a lot of things and we have a lot of money in our budget that comes from mandatory student activity fees that the students have available for them to go to these events and they just need to know about them. So that’s one thing I want to improve … branding and publicity for Activities Commission.”
Jenny Keller ‘14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“Basically, the objective of this position is to serve as a liaison between SA and Activities Commission. During SA meetings, I’ll be relaying all the program information, time, locations of the events that students get to enjoy for free. I’ll also have a say on financial decisions for the benefit of the students.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I’ve had the distinct opportunity of experiencing two different programming experiences within AC, including Mac’s Place and concerts. I work with the largest budget on the programming board now, and I’ve been on the board since I was a freshman. I am the underwriter for the radio station, the event manager of the guitar club and Amnesty International. I have a very broad and diverse experience with programming.”
If elected, what would you like to change or improve?
“One thing I’d like to improve is higher attendance at AC events, as well as overall awareness of what each programmer does and what they do to entertain students. They give them the opportunity to attend events that would have taken away from their college experience if it wasn’t there. I’ll be allotted time during SA meetings to give updates, so that is an obvious example. Working on an individual basis with programmers too will help them. I plan on meeting with them individually to see what their goals are and how they can get the word out … about their events. I can also continue to collaborate with other student organizations … like [Geneseo Late Knight].”
Director of Academic Affairs
Effie Barbagiannis ‘14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“Academic Affairs Committee essentially does what SA does on a smaller scale. SA gives money to [X] clubs for conferences and events, while Academic Affairs does the same thing for the academic clubs, like Biology Club and English Club. We host Rock Your Semester. Right before registration we have syllabi out so people can look at the syllabi and see what classes they want to take. We also do a Trivia Bowl and the Professor Recognition Ceremony. Students get to nominate professors to win an award. It’s a really great program.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I started this year as secretary, and this semester I’m the vice chair. I’ve been on the board and I know the inner workings of AAC. I’ve been in a lot of different SA clubs. I am currently the co-president of Amnesty International, I’ve been in Model UN and I was on the EcoHouse hall council. Through Amnesty I’ve developed the leadership I feel necessary to be a chair of a committee. Through vice chair and secretary I’ve basically learned all the fundamental things of AAC. I really believe in AAC and I definitely think that’s a qualification. I want AAC to continue on a positive road. As president of Amnesty I had to plan a conference to Boston in the fall semester. Everyone on the SA board was extremely helpful and I really appreciated that. Everyone was friendly and approachable. At the same time, the budget was difficult to navigate. If I didn’t have people to help me out, I don’t know if I could have done it.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“Two years ago they held a mini lecture series. I’d like to get that going again. That would be a fun thing to do. Essentially, I want to make sure all the academic clubs can continue to attend all of their events. I would like to have a budget workshop at one of our first couple of meetings. I feel like the budget is hard to understand for clubs. I feel like if we had a workshop on how to fill out paperwork, it would be a lot simpler for them later on. I feel like college is an experience and being part of SA and all of these great organizations … it really positively impacted my college experience. So, I personally … hope to continue letting other students feel the same way. I want to continue to be approachable and knowledgeable – to be helpful for others and create a friendly environment. People can come in during SA office hours and always have someone available to help them.”
Director of Inter-Residence Affairs
Olivia Kelly ’14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“I think that IRC, Inter-Residence Council, really builds leaders for Geneseo. A lot of members of IRC go on to be members of SA and other things, other than just directors. For example, Carly Annable, the current president, was a member of IRC and Nick Spengler, he was president last year and he, too, was on IRC originally. I think it’s really important because it really does develop leadership for students, and I think it’s a really good use of SA funds. If you look at their budget, when you consider how many people are using IRC funds just for hall council events and how many people are attending these hall council events, it really is an amazing use of money, and that’s pretty cool.”
What do you feel qualifies for this position?
“I was a general assembly member of IRC last fall, and last spring, 2012, I was elected treasurer, so I’m really familiar with IRC budget and how all the funds work, and how each executive member’s budget will work and what they do with that money. I’m also currently on the SA budget review so I think I’ve looked at all the different clubs and standing committees and everyone’s budgets, so I think I understand how they work pretty well, and if anyone were to come to SA office and they have any questions, or if they were confused about anything, I have a pretty strong understanding of how to do that. Also I’ve attended NEACURH conferences, which is the North East Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls. I’ve attended two of those conferences and we hosted one of those conferences here just last fall and I was the financier. So I got a lot of leadership and organizational skills from doing that.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“If elected, I really want to carry on what Silvia Roma’s doing—she’s the current director of inter-residence affairs. She makes IRC fun and enjoyable for the general assembly members by making theme weeks and it really helps keep people invested in going and wanting to go. And at the same time it’s very professional. They follow Robert’s Rules of Order, which helps Silvia keep order in meetings; there’s no side chatter during the meetings, and that’s something I’d really like to continue. There’s really not too much that I’d like to change, I’d just like to try and find a way to promote more discussion in IRC and I know that’s something [Roma] has been working on and I’ve actually talked to her about it. It’s just really difficult to do, but I really want to figure out how to do that.”
Marie Dempsey ‘14
What service does your position provide to the campus and community?
“I would not only serve on the SA Executive Board but I would also serve as chair of the Inter-Residence Council. As chair, I would run meetings in which all of the different residence halls come to voice their opinion. Through IRC, we give funding to all the different halls to put on programs and promote well-being in the residence hall communities.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I have served on the executive board last year as secretary and this year as the national communications coordinator. Through these positions, I gained a lot of experience in programming as well as leading delegations to conferences that promote well-being in residence halls.”
If elected, what do you hope to change or improve?
“I would like to promote IRC more and have more involvement outside of just the representatives that have to come there. I would like to have town hall-style meetings to talk about different issues that students have so I can bring that back to the SA board.”
Director of Business Affairs
Robert Terreri ’14
What role do you feel the position plays in serving the Geneseo students and community?
“I think the role of director of business affairs fundamentally is to be a resource for all the different clubs and organizations on campus; assisting them in receiving funding for all their conferences, events and help them navigate through financial policy.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“For the last three years I’ve been working within Student Association. My freshman spring semester to sophomore year fall semester I was the chair of the election committee. During my sophomore year I worked within the Academic Affairs Committee as a representative and this year I’ve been working as treasurer of [AAC.] And during that time I have been working with the Quidditch team in helping them receive funding from the school being officially recognized. So I’m pretty familiar with how financial policy works throughout all those different roles I’ve had, especially working through [AAC] in the last year. I’m also on the budget review hearing committee this semester.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“One of the big things I want to improve is ease of access for clubs and organizations. Looking at the SA website, financial policy is extremely difficult to work through, not to mention some of the bylaws are old and outdated which definitely need to be updated. An example of that would be under the vice president’s position there is a $1,000 drawing fund for club sports. However, if you go on the SA website there is no mention of that drawing fund even existing. Unless you went to the SA office and started asking a lot of people about it you wouldn’t know it was there. So I think just insuring that more financial information is available to students and organizations on the SA website. Since almost every student pays a mandatory student activity fee I think that every budget that SA has for each organization should be available for students to read online. It doesn’t have to be extremely detailed. It just needs to show what each club is getting and what that money is going to.”
Director of Student Affairs
Bruno Villazhinay ’14
What role do you feel the position plays in serving the Geneseo students and community?
“The director of Student Affairs deals with the [Alliance for Community Enrichment] clubs and basically all the cultural clubs. I feel like the cultural clubs enhance the well-being of the student body by exposing us to other cultures and ideas. Within SA I think different ideas and I think that’s what the ACE clubs do as well. They do different things such as the intercultural dinners and plan different events. I’ll be with the ACE students talking to them and helping them out with the clubs and getting ideas from them and bringing those ideas to the SA board; just having different ranges of ideas from different clubs.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I’ve been very involved with most of the cultural clubs, been on the eboard for Pride [Alliance], and I’ve been working closely with [Latino Student Association] and [Black Student Union]. I’ve been to a lot of intercultural dinners as well. I have different positions in other groups as well. I’m the vice president for EcoHouse hall council and I’m a member of Alpha Phi Omega and that’s given me a lot of leadership skills, social skills and different assets that will allow me to do well in this position if I get it. Other things are that I’ve been working on my own projects with Pride and advocacy and LSA. For example, we’re bringing a speaker this Thursday from New York City. He’ll be talking about stereotypes in the LSA and the LGBT community. Those are some of the things I’ve been doing.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“One of the things I really want to see on campus is more diversity and for campus to be diverse friendly. One of the ways I want to do that is by making the anti-bullying campaign that Pride has brought bigger by including the minority and diverse clubs, the ACE clubs basically; working with LSA, BSU, Shakti, [Geneseo Chinese Culture Club], [Japanese Culture Club], and all the other cultural clubs as well so that we can all work together and make our campus more diverse friendly. That is one of my ideas that I really want to do.”
Director of Public Relations
Riley Burchell ’14
What role do you feel this position plays in serving Geneseo students and the community?
“I really feel like this position of [public relations] is the middleman between SA exec and higher-ups in the SUNY system and the students. The role of PR is to basically interact with the students, get a feel of the direction they feel the school needs to be going in, and to implement that, whether that be through advertising or the programs that we bring here.”
What do you feel qualifies you for this position?
“I have had graphic layout and photography internships and positions with the City of Rochester as well as the Associated Press. I have been published nationally. I also work in college communications as a photographer with Keith Walters and Brian Bennett. I serve as communications director on the Academic Affairs SA subcommittee.”
If elected, what do you plan to change or improve?
“I plan to change how advertising is done in the school. I think that, while we’ve made a shift towards more virtual, paperless advertising, what we’re really missing is input from the students. Paperless advertising is great, but if you’re not communicating with the students and really catering to the specific student body in regards to what method would be most effective in getting SA’s message across, then you’re not really making any huge jumps forward. So I think a lot of it is integration of student opinion.”