Interviews with candidates for 2012-2013 Student Association Executive Committee

President

Carly Annable

Class of 2013

Define the position you're running for and explain why you're running.

I'm running for the position of SA President. Basically, in this position I am the face of the student body to administration, faculty, staff and alumni. I advocate for the students and I help make sure that the SA (executive) board is making informed decisions on what to do with mandatory student activity fees.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

I've been involved in Inter-Residence Council which is one of the standing committees for Student Association since freshman year. I've also been involved in various different organizations on campus, such as National Residence Hall Honorary, the Lamron, I did a show on GSTV...I'm also a member of Phi Lambda Chi sorority and I've been involved with orientation since the summer after my freshman year, so I feel that I have a really diverse background of Geneseo experiences that I think would give me a unique upper hand in the election and when dealing with Student Association. I feel that through my experiences, I'm really in tune with the average student is interested in and is looking for from their experiences with Student Association.

What are your plans if you are elected?

If I'm elected, my largest goal is to make sure that there's a mechanism put into place so that organizations are required to sit down with someone from SA exec before their reading can be put on the agenda. Getting up in front of SA is an intimidating process, and that's not something that I think should be necessary...I don't think that it's anyone's fault that it is intimidating, but a lot of times when organizations get up there, they don't really understand what kinds of questions they're going to be asked...Being able to meet with someone would allow them to...realize what kinds of questions they're going to be asked-- whether or not coming to SA is the correct form of funding or whether or not they can already just realign funds that they already have. It'll just make the process a lot less painful.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

The thing that I disagree with the most out of this year, but I completely understand why it was passed, was increasing the funding for the concert. I love the concert; I think that it's one of the biggest ways that Student Association gives back to the student body, but I don't think that increasing it by that much was entirely necessary...I stand behind our e-board's decision to increase the funding for it, because I think that concerts does a really good job with the funding that they're given.

Thoughts on the budget and the state of the reserves?

Right now the state of the reserves is something that I take really seriously. I don't think that we're in a horrible position, but I do think that we need to be a little bit more critical when we are looking at funding things and looking at taking things out of reserves...The reserves are there for a reason; they're there to ensure that if the referendum doesn't pass...we'll still be able to fund organizations, and just because we think that the referendum is going to pass now doesn't mean that it's always going to (pass). It's not fair for us to be playing with the future association's money."

What do you feel the role of the SA constitution is?

I think that the (role of) SA's constitution is to ensure continuity between years. Every board has their own opinions on how to interpret it, but when it comes down to it there are aspects of the constitution and the bylaws that are relatively strict and you can't really interpret as leniently as others ... I like the fact that the constitution kind of gives us a framework to work off of, but ensures that if an e-board wasn't acting in the students' best interest, that there are mechanisms in place to deal with it.

Do you feel that students understand what SA is? How could transparency be increased?

I think that students are aware of Student Association ... A good amount of everything that every student is involved in on campus is funded by Student Association, but I don't think the average student is really aware of the breadth of the impact that SA has. This is something that next year, if I'm elected, I would really like to work with whoever is PR to make Student Association's name and mission a little bit more visible. On the topic of transparency, I don't think that Student Association is as transparent as it could possibly be. If I'm elected, I want to work with the PR person to put more things online and make things more available for students to look at. I also want to advertise more that Student Association's office is an open office, and that it's everyone's office, so that if anyone has any questions or concerns, that they can walk in and someone will give them the answers that they're looking for

Vice President

Justin Shapiro

Class of 2013

Define the position you're running for and explain why you're running.

The vice president is a position that is right underneath the president on the SA executive board, and it's a really cool position because you get a lot of the responsibilities of the president while also having a say in SA meetings and having a vote in SA meetings. That means taking the duties of the president, e.g. working with administrators, working with faculty, while also having an opportunity to work one-on-one with the organizations that are in the general assembly. SA vice president also works with the college senate and they sit on the executive board – that means that you're the liason between students and the executive board for the college senate. You advocate for policies on behalf of the students – that's most certainly something I'm excited about doing. You are the umbrella under which club sports sits … and so that means working with club sports executive board, working on ways to improve the way they receive funding and working with athletics in order to better the experience of club sports on campus … Being vice president would give me a chance to really bring forward those clubs into...not only Student Association, but the college as a whole."

What experience qualifies you for this position?

My freshman year I was elected into the treasurer position of Model United Nations and back then the treasurer was also the SA rep. I’m proud to say I’ve been to every SA meeting since December 2, 2009, and I’ve seen the organization change a lot … I do have experience on an organizational level, dealing with finances and dealing with budget. I have a very … strong working relationship Kate (Rebban) and Nancy (Chirico) which is imperative for any position on SA (executive board). I served as treasurer of Academic Affairs Committee, so I know what it’s like to work on a standing committee … Going into the position I hold now, director of academic affairs on the executive board, I went in there with a good, solid understanding of the constitution and our financial policies. I also served on the Budget Review Committee, so I know a lot about finances from that … I served on the Undergraduate Student Academic Elections Committee, so I know about facilitating elections and how that related to SA. Being director of academic affairs also lets me work with the Provost, the Associate Provost … so I also have a really good working relationship with a lot of those upper level faculty (members). I also serve on the college senate executive board. I was a work-study with the athletics department my freshman year and so I have a … good, solid acquaintance-level relationship with Mike Mooney, the athletics director, and all the coaches there … All in all I think I’ve had the experience in Student Association over the last three years here that is necessary for the position.”

What are your plans if you are elected?

I think it would be really cool if we started off every semester with a public forum. Advertise it well, get a lot of students in a room together, and build a consensus around a few really cool, really key and really integral policies that students want to see enacted. If we get everyone on campus talking about a few really important things, we can make a big change … It democratizes the Student Association Vice President position and also gives everyone a voice in how the college senate functions on a student level. Another thing is I want to sort of streamline … the college sports budget. The way it works now … it's really hard for them to get funding, just because the [executive] board only meets every so often …To sort of consolidate that, maybe give the vice president a little more of a role in dispersing funds, would be really good way for club sports to get the money they need to function. I also want to visit every standing committee at least twice a semester, bring back feedback from the college senate and feedback from the standing committees into the college senate. The way it works now is the vice president meets with the Student Association executive board and the Student Association clubs that are in the room and that's about it. To meet with the standing committees, some of the most engaged and active people on campus, I think is a great idea and I don't understand why it hasn't been done in the past. [I would also like to] continue working with clubs [and to] make sure I'm always available to meet with them, because I am always most certainly down to talk about SA.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

I did strongly agree with the concert increase. There's been a lot of talk about deficits which isn't true, we're not in a deficit yet … The way that you manage funds is you can approve big readings and approve other readings for other organizations. We have the power to look ahead and I think ... the board did that really well. [The concert] is one of the most visible things we do on campus. It engages not just AC concerts, it engages the Lamron in advertising, it engages GSTV in advertising, it engages a wide variety of organizations from SA tech to every organization that decides to attend. One problem I have is I think going forward, next year's executive board should look into ways in which we can schedule the concert without interfering with cultural dinners. It's not fair to the cultural dinners, and it's a shame that happened this year ... One thing I would do next year is...foster more cross-organizational dialogue between ACE groups and concerts to ensure that that doesn't happen again."

Rob Kahrs

Class of 2014

Define the position you're running for and explain why you're running.

The vice president position is one that commands a lot of responsibility out of the individual holding it. Being a visible face of campus, making sure that the president has all the capabilities to carry out their responsibilities, as well as serve the student senators and represent the student body at the all-college senate, something I think that I'd be very good at.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

I am a two-year veteran of student senate. I have been present for many policy changes, and lack of changes, such as a 5 to 12 change. I have experience speaking in front of senate and serving as a member to the faculty affairs committee, and having a perfect attendance for both. Additionally, I have spoken to both previous vice presidents about the position – I know what it entails, I know what the requirements are, and I believe that I would be able to step into those shoes very easily ... I also have spoken to many other exec members and tried to determine the right balance of working academically and extracurricularly.

What are your plans if you are elected?

If elected, I plan to use the student senators that I select to make sure the proper issues are brought to all-college senate, especially by using the senators to visit other standing bodies of the student association.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

There was a lot of gray area when it came to the spring concert – dipping into reserves for additional funds, things like that. I was an advocate for a possible slight raise in ticket prices to try and offset the costs because I know that in the previous academic year, the Student Association dipped well into the reserve funds, and if for some reason the referendum doesn't pass, we still need to fund all our student organizations. That was something that I somewhat disagreed with, however I do respect the decision being made. In future concerts, whether there's two or one for the year, I think that's something that needs a lot more scrutiny, a lot more discussion based upon how we want to provide the funding for the concert.

Thoughts on the budget and the state of the reserves?

I think it was a great thing that the mandatory student activity fees were raised from $85 to $100 ... I think that the $15 per student was a necessary thing, especially with the rising costs. The state of the reserves I think to be more closely monitored so we don't overdraw from that account too much; that we are able to create a balanced budget and use money we do have more efficiently.

What do you feel the role of the SA constitution is?

The role of the constitution is to provide the background necessary for making gray-area decisions, because it is a culmination of many years' worth of going through the issues. When something comes up that is uncertain as to whether it is permissible, we do have a reference point to go off of, and if it's not directly covered it allows us to make a more accurate decision.

Do you feel that students understand what SA is? How could transparency be increased?

I think without a doubt all students know what SA is in the general sense – it’s where our mandatory student activity fees goes, it's the thing that gives money to organizations and puts on a lot of the great programs on campus, but I don't know how much students know about all the standing committees, about avenues they can get involved with, and about how intricate the relationship is between student association and the administrative body. To increase transparency, I think that in advertising the SA meetings is a great thing ... but also having a greater presence especially at the information fair, the few that we've had throughout the year and greater access to materials and information especially on knightlink is going to help with that.

Director of Student Programming

Matt Bower

Class of 2013

Define the position you’re running for and explain why you’re running.

The position I’m running for is Director of Student Programming, which also serves as the Chair of Activities Commission. The reason I’m running is because I’m currently the Vice Chair of Activities Commission and I’ve always been interested in spearheading the organization and being a part of Student Association since freshman year. I have met with the Advisor, Kerry Bachman, and the current Director of Student Programming, Heather Bristol, and the previous Director of Student Programming, Nick Spengler, about their positions. As for logistics, you are the Chair of Activities Commission, so that means you run the General Assembly. You are in charge of the Executive Board, so you run the Executive meetings. You are the one that makes sure everything happens. You also serve on Student Association, so that means that you are one of the seven individuals that votes on all of the Student Association related financial policies. You are the individual who is in charge of the class funding, so any class that wants to put on an event has a specific place to go for funding. I’m the person that accepts or denies the events that they want to put on. I’m in charge of the reception following Commencement and all of the logistics of that. Other than that I’m responsible for meeting with the Advisor of AC every week and meeting with all the individuals to make sure their jobs are followed through with and being the liaison between SA and AC.

What experience do you feel qualifies you for this position?

I am currently the Vice Chair so I have worked directly with the current Director of Student Programming and the previous Director of Student Programming to gain other experience that relates to SA. I’ve been the president of Amnesty International for two years, so I’ve been very involved with that side of Student Association. I know exactly how all the conference funding, presentations, and Student Association meetings work. For leadership experience in general, I’ve been Board of Directors member and leader of Livingston Cares, the humanitarian relief effort in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Vice President of Leadership of Alpha Phi Omega, which is the community service organization. I’m currently the Literacy and Education Service Director of Golden Key International Honors Society. For Residence Life, I’ve been a Resident Advisor in EcoHouse for two semesters, and I currently serve as such. Previously I’ve been an RA in Erie Hall and next year I’ll be serving as the Assistant Residence Director of Dante House. I think that I have a lot of related experience.

Do you have any plans if elected?

There’s a lot of things that I want to do. The first is that right now I’m starting to meet with every member of the current General Assembly and the Executive Board. We are going to have a fifteen minute meeting per individual. We are going to sit down and I’m going to take notes on everything that they want to change about AC, because they know what needs to happen in the future. After I meet with every individual, I’m going to create an Action Statement, a plan of what we want to do next year, and I’m going to present it to the current board and we are going to talk about it and see what needs to be changed. Currently, I serve as the Vice Chair, so I’m in charge of elections processes, so I’m going to meet with newly elected executives and talk with them about what needs to happen in the future. As for the plan for AC logistics, currently we meet in the Board Room. It’s a very dark and small room. Everyone is constantly pushing interrelatedness between AC and SA and that can’t happen in a small room. I’m planning on moving us to the Hunt Room next year so that we have enough room for people to come sit in with us and for other members of campus to get more involved with us.

What are the decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

One problem we face is that we have tons of programming positions, such as concerts and such and they all plan their own events. For example KINO is planning the movie events like its almost as if KINO is doing that and AC is not doing that. It is difficult to get everyone together working on a single event. We have been working on pushing a board aspect instead of an individualistic aspect to make sure that it is more cohesive. I think that we’ve had a lot of great progress with that and I think that we need to keep pushing that in the future. We’ve had a bit of an issue with things being almost too professional this year so that it feels like you’re coming to work and people are like coworkers. I feel that it needs to be more of a friendship or social relationship, like Greek life or Res Life. I hope to continue to push that feeling in the future.

What are your thoughts on the SA budget and the state of the reserves?

Everyone is well aware that we were left in debt from the last year, which is a major problem that we’ve continued to face. There has been a big scare about not giving people money. This was a big issue when it came to increasing the budget for concerts. I think that we need to be very cognizant of the money that we spend and that the individual who gets the business position for Student Association needs to be incredible competent and that we still need to program effectively. That would be my job. Given the resources that we have, we still need to do the best that we possibly can.

Director of Business Affairs

Casey Howard

Class of 2013

Define the position and explain why you’re running.

Director of business affairs is basically the liaison between Student Association and the other organizations in terms of their clubs and budgets. In the beginning of the year you have to coordinate training for the treasurers of the student organizations. Make sure they understand the financial policy, how to go about placing purchase orders and submitting their budgets. Make sure they know how to function for the rest of the year in coordination with financial policy. Additionally DBA puts together the minutes and the agendas for each SA meeting, so you have to submit whatever meetings you want to place for SA to the director of business affairs and it’s their responsibility to make sure they are in coordination with financial policy before they go up to SA to be read for. At the end of the year you do the budget review committee meetings. Each organization will come and schedule a time to discuss what their budget is this year and what they’re hoping to get for next year. Then it’s an opportunity for the club to ask for more money and show why they’ve been successful in the past year. It’s also a time for them to show how they’re hoping to grow. This is what we find more important.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

This is my second year at Geneseo. My freshman year I was at Queens College and there I was the campus affairs vice chair for their student association. Basically it was a similar position to director of business affairs in that I oversaw all of the on-campus organizations and clubs and their budgets. We had upwards of 25,000 students at Queens and probably 350 organizations so I was working with a lot more organizations, a lot more budgets and on the same token we had a lot more money coming in because there was such a large number of students paying mandatory student activity fees. I had a little more flexibility than this director of business affairs position gives but I do understand how to work with clubs to get collaboration for their funding because I think that it’s difficult because we don’t have so much to allocate to the clubs, but to kind of give them avenues to fund their clubs instead of just having to say, “We don’t have the money.” I don’t think we should go into budget increases initially every time someone needs money. Looking into other venues, through CAS, the college or departments that might be able to fund these kind of programs outside of just student activity fees. Additionally I am on IRC right now, I’m one of the national communication coordinators for inter-residence council. Basically what that means is myself and my co, junior Silvia Roma, put together delegations to go to conferences where we discuss on-campus programming and ways to enrich campus life around New England and New York. That’s given the unique opportunity to represent Geneseo on a regional and national level. When we pick our delegations we’re not only picking people who are top programmers or leaders on campus. We’re looking for those who will showcase what Geneseo students have to offer and the personality and community that we find enriching here. I think that shows how much I appreciate the campus and want to give back because I understand how much we have to offer, not just in leadership or student organizations, but even just the atmosphere we have here on campus.

Do you have any plans, should you be elected?

I would like to lengthen the budget review meeting timeline. At this point, it’s just that you sign up for a spot, and you get a 10-minute period to argue your points. Hopefully the committee has read your rationale before they’ve gotten there, but it’s very possible they haven’t. So that gives you 10 minutes to go through your budget, reiterate your rationale that you probably took a lot longer than 10 minutes to write, and hopefully get across to the committee, who’s been sitting through God knows how many other meetings that day, that your club deserves this money. Not that it’s anything wrong with the committee; I think it’s the student organizations that don’t get advocated for. I’d like to spread it across a longer time, and I understand that’s more work for the budget review committee, but at the same token it is what’s going to affect the organization for the next year, so we have to give it the same credence that the organization gives it when they’re asking for the money. I’d also like to increase it to not just one meeting, hopefully a meeting where not just the committee has looked at the budget and given feedback, but so they can have a second time to meet with us to maybe reargue something if they feel we didn’t understood why something was important, or where they can say, “We see what you’re talking about and now we’re OK with the change,” as opposed to, “You cut our budget and we didn’t have the time to discuss what happened.” I don’t think that’s how anyone on SA wants to be represented.

What are your thoughts on the budget and the state of the reserves?

Personally, I do not feel comfortable dipping into reserves. The purpose of reserves obviously is to have something should the referendum not pass, so SA and the organizations could function for up to two years. At this point, I don’t feel comfortable working with an amount that would be about a quarter of what we’d have to function. We do not have the ability to remain at their current capacity; everyone would have to take a huge cut. I don’t think that’s in anyone’s best interest. I think what may have been happening is that SA exec members are not necessarily thinking in the long run and while some of the money they’re funding is going to build organizations for the future, at the same token, they’re not necessarily voting on what the students want but what they think is a good idea. I believe that as an SA exec board member I’d be voting on behalf of the students, not what I know to be the best for an organization or student association. My opinion doesn’t count as much as the other 5,000 students whose mandatory student activity fees are being used. I’d like to see better attention paid to the budget. While this year’s exec[utive board] has done a really good job not waiving first week readings and trying to get as much information as possible, I’d also like to go into financial policy and investigate; I don’t think two week readings should be the same for $4,000 for an event, and concerts asking for $80,000. I don’t think two weeks is enough for that kind of money. I don’t think they’re being given the attention they need.

Nikolay Clark

Class of 2013

Define the position and explain why you’re running for it.

My understanding is that the director of business affairs is in charge of all the inventory and they have to do weekly minutes for SA and all the SA readings. That also involves putting everything on KnightLink so all the clubs and organizations get to see what has happened, what readings went through and didn’t. The most important part is the audit at the end of the year; making sure we have all our accounts balanced.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

I feel like I’m qualified; I’ve been taking minutes since high school. My freshman year I was in Alpha Kappa Psi, the business fraternity. I’ve taken minutes for all our pledge classes. Last year I was in Steuben; I was treasurer and then vice president. Those both gave me experience managing money and also allowed me to take minutes for officers and keep things on file.

Do you have any plans should you be elected?

If I’m elected I’m going to try to get all of our financial things streamlined. Right now we’re working on KnightLink finance tab but there have been some difficulties so I’ve been looking at alternatives. There’s a Google product called Wave Accounting which we could probably get … I’m also trying to see if we can get our purchase orders and check requests digitized. Right now I think they’re taking a lot of time going from paper source to an individual to email and back to paper source. I think if somehow that was incorporated into digital format it would be a great advantage for the SA staff because there’s not so much back and forth between organizations and the officers. Also it will expedite the refunds or money requests for clubs and organizations. It’s a win-win for both.

Thoughts on the budget? Reserves?

I, personally, haven’t looked at the budget yet but we’ve talked about it a little during our SA election debate. One of the questions was about the ability of using the leftover funds for all of our big, extravagant musical events. I feel like that’s great, but we should also keep in mind that it is a budget and we should stick to it and not go into the reserves as we have done in previous years.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agreed or disagreed with?

I think everything, at the end, was balanced out. If there were times when it seemed uneven or unequal to other clubs and organizations, at the end it turned out equal. There’s not a club or organization that got a lot or a little; it worked out.

What do you think the role of the SA constitution is?

The SA constitution should be a guide for the officers to help the clubs and organizations to stay on track. It’s also a reference to keep everyone in check and in line, to make sure that everything is followed and no rules are broken. I think the constitution is being upheld to what it is right now. This year there’s the constitution review and I know they’re going to try to do some new propositions; I’m not sure the exact ones. They’re trying to make it friendlier, easier for clubs and organizations to get funding and more accessible to all the students who pay the mandatory fees.

Do you think students understand what SA is? How could transparency could be increased?

I think that a lot of students see the charge on their fees but they don’t understand that the fee enables them to be in SA and guarantees them to be involved and take advantage of all the clubs and organizations that SA supports and helps out. I think students don’t really understand that the activities fee opens up all these doors for them and I would like to have the finances up online somewhere so they’re more visible and the student body can see what their money is going to and the things they can get involved with because of that fee.

Chris Caggiano

Class of 2013

Define the position and explain why you’re running for it.

The director of business affairs essentially is in charge of the finances of SA. They’re in charge of making the agenda for all the meetings, telling club treasurers how financial policy works and just being the person running financial policy on SA. I served as Model U.N. treasurer this year and I got a lot of experience with SA. I’ve been going to the SA meetings and I think I’d make a really positive contribution to the student association and bring my experience to the position.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

Right now I’m Model U.N. treasurer. We’re one of the highest budgeted clubs in the Student Association so I deal with purchase orders, check requests, all that. Then I’m also at the meetings; I’m participating and contributing to the debate and getting the general feel for how the school is being run. I was on budget review committee this past year. We overlooked all the organizations budgets. It was a three-person appointed committee and everyone came and presented their budgets and we looked them over. I’m also the vice president of the junior class, so I have experience within the school.

Do you have any plans, should you be elected?

I have some basic things that I’d like to see done. First of all, I’d like to see a lot more, if it’s possible, digitalization of budgets, putting them on KnightLink so organizations can access them and see what their budgets are. It adds an extra layer of transparency to the whole process. Simple things like that to open up transparency, such as finding people to come to budget review. They’re allowed to, they just don’t know that. Making treasury training a little more informative, a little more in depth so that the treasurers don’t have to come to the future DBA, they don’t have to come to Kate [Rebban] all the time with problems because they’ll be better trained and better understand the process. Some other basic things; I know I’m not the person in charge of publicity, but getting the word out there about SA, getting more people to come to meetings and get involved. Everyone’s paying that mandatory student activity fee and I want people to know that and realize they contribute. I would take this issue very seriously.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agreed or disagreed with?

I can’t think of one that really stands out. There are some that sounded like unreasonable uses of money but my opinion isn’t important, I’m not on SA exec. If I did think strongly enough I did raise my hand and speak about when there’s open discussion on the reading. But that’s their prerogative, and that’s their course of action. I think every exec has a different feel and way of doing things.

What are your thoughts on the budget and the state of the reserves?

I served on budget review so I know a lot about this. I thought it was good because the organizations present their budgets and we have SA can spend, and it was about $20,000 over and we had to make up that money because we shouldn’t dip into the reserves. There are certain things that may come up and we may need that money. It’s better that we make cuts and be at budget at the beginning of the year and then if they do have pressing things they can always come in and do a reading and we’ll be more than happy to give them that money, granted it’s something good. We looked at five-year trends of who’s using their money and some clubs don’t use all their money. It’d be better to have that money in reserves and if they do need it, they can come ask for it.

What do you feel the role of the SA constitution is?

I think it sets out what our responsibilities are. It holds certain positions to what they have to do and if someone’s not doing that there’s impeachment. That’s a little harsh and doesn’t usually come into play but it does hold the exec board accountable. We’re elected by the students and we’re there to make sure their money is used wisely and used for things they want it to be used for. So as long as the exec board is doing their job, I think that’s what the constitution is meant to do. More important for my position is financial policy. I have a lot of experience with financial policy and I think there might be a few tweaks that could be done here or there but overall I think our financial policy is very effective.

Director of Inter-Residence Affairs

Silvia Roma

Class of 2013

Define the position you’re running for and explain why you are running?

Director of Inter-Residence affairs has two major components: one would be representing the on-campus students through SA at SA meetings as well as chairing the standing committee IRC. At IRC we get together with thirty representatives from all the residence halls to allocate funds given to us through SA to put on quality programs in the residence halls. I’ve been a part of IRC in some way, shape or form since my freshman year. As a freshman, I was on my hall council in Jones Hall. I was a second hall rep but was an IRC sub rep. I loved the IRC meetings I went to and decided to run for the IRC rep position my sophomore year in Genesee Hall and I absolutely loved my experience. As an IRC rep I started going to conferences with IRC and through my positive experience I decided that I wanted to run for national communication coordinator, which is the position I currently hold with Casey Howard. That has also been such a positive experience, which I think has really prepared me for the position of Director of Inter-Residence Affairs because a lot of what I do is to make sure that the delegates that I bring to conferences are getting the most out of their experience and I think that something that’s important in the role of Director of Inter-Residence Affairs is making sure that the residents and our representatives are getting the most out of their experience at Geneseo.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

I think that my experience as national communication coordinator has allowed me to understand how the executive board of IRC runs as well as my attendance at SA meetings allowing me to understand how SA functions. I work currently as an RA. I clearly have an invested interest in the students. I absolutely love programming. I go to the conferences through IRC to promote programming and to bring programs from other schools in the northeast region back to Geneseo. I look forward to representing Geneseo students here to the administration and faculty, if elected. I would not be the leader I am today without the experience IRC has given me. Otherwise, I pretty much explained above my experiences that made me qualified for the job.

Do you have any plans if you are elected?

One of the things I would love to see more of is collaboration between the other standing committees as well as ACE. I think that the mission of the other committees, putting on quality programs with what they do, is a common mission throughout the SA committees. Working together with the other standing committees and supporting them is important to me, having also been a part of AAC. Not only are we residents, we’re also students, so why not help out other standing committees when they’re putting on programs when they directly affect us as well? Additionally, it’s imperative that more students get involved with the advocacy trips. It’s important that we make sure that our on-campus residents know these things are going on, because the trip to Albany this year was canceled, which was unfortunate. I think that getting the word out there is important.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

This year, Carly Annable, who is the current Director of Inter-Residence Affairs, has done a great job having town-hall style meetings for IRC. We’ve had one so far and it was really successful. I really liked that—I thought we really heard the voices of students and what they wanted and what they felt was important. Because of that, we are having administrators come in and speak about the issues addressed at the meeting. So, if elected, I would love to keep those meetings. Having one every month or every other month would really important to me to keep an open dialogue as well as having CAS come in and take the opinions of our representatives and directly using them to see changes in the dining facilities. There hasn’t been anything I strongly disagreed with because in my mind the money is there for the representatives to use. I would like to see more programs, so something I would work on is making sure people feel comfortable presenting readings, possibly doing more mock-readings if they’re aren’t feeling ready to present yet.

What are your thoughts on the budget and the reserves?

I think that SA has done a great job at being very careful with how money is allocated and, if elected, I would want more knowledge about what our on-campus students want. For example, when we had the issue with taking funds out of the reserves for the concert, Carly directly brought that up to the IRC representatives to get an idea of what on-campus students wanted. I think that’s a great way of seeing what students think and ultimately representing them in my decision. As far as the reserves, I think that they’re there as reserves and I’m really concerned about dipping into them because in the event that the referendum doesn’t pass, that’s a huge issue we have to keep in mind every time we want to dip into those funds. We have to be really careful.

Director of Student Affairs

Sadie Baker

Class of 2013

Define the position that you’re running for and explain why you’re running for it.

The Director of Student Affairs has five main jobs. First, they’re chair for the Alliance for Community Enrichment, which is a committee that incorporates the ten multicultural student groups on campus. Last year, I was the Alliance for Community Enrichment representative for Pride Alliance, so I have a lot of experience with ACE already. I had a really good experience when I was on ACE, and I got to know a lot of how SA and ACE work. I thought that I could be a really good chair because I have a lot of experience and because multicultural work is one of my passions. The Director of Student Affairs is also the liaison for campus students and represents Geneseo at advocacy lobbying events in Albany. They also sit on the board of Geneseo First Response, and I have worked at Lauderdale Center for Student Health and Counseling for the past two years. I thought it would be good for the GFR Board to have a student on it because it is mostly made up of adults, and since I have experience with Geneseo’s medical system, I think that my input could be really useful. I’ve also been working with the current director of student affairs on some system for student transportation to and from Rochester for things like medical appointments and emergencies. We are also working with the sexual assault team at Geneseo to see if we could work that in. That is something that I really want to keep doing as Director of Student Affairs.

What experience do you think qualifies you for the position?

I think that as an ACE representative I got a lot of experience with how ACE works. I’ve also been to quite a few SA meetings so I know how SA works. This is the second year that I’ve been on the E-Board for a Geneseo group. I’m currently the secretary of Pride Alliance, so we do a lot of getting funding through SA and things like that. I think that the Executive Board of SA really needs someone who is familiar with what SA does and what it consists of, because SA has a lot of rules and a lot of red tape sometimes.

Do you have any plans if you are elected?

I want to keep working on the project to organize some kind of student transportation to the hospitals in Rochester, particularly Strong Hospital. I would also like to see more events having to do with intersectionality on ACE because right now the groups can apply for funding through ACE on their own or through working with another ACE group, but most of the events are primarily run by one group. I’d really like to see more group events, like speakers, that address issues of intersectionality. In Pride we recently had two really great meetings about the intersections between racial minority groups and sexual minority groups. Those meetings brought up a lot of really interesting issues that I think would be relevant to the greater community, or at least interesting to the greater Geneseo community.

Where there any decisions made this year that you strongly agreed or disagreed with?

There was an issue where the Korean-American Student Association had scheduled their Cultural Dinner a year ago and Activities Commission scheduled the Spring Concert for the exact same night. KOASA went to them and asked why AC scheduled their event then and, though I haven’t heard AC’s side of the story, what I heard from KOASA was that AC claimed their event was bigger than KOASA’s, so they would just have to reschedule. KOASA had to reschedule for earlier in the day, which they are afraid will impact the number of people that will turn up. I was displeased when I heard that because I thought that one committee of SA should not be stepping on the toes of another committee on SA. I think that it’s important that all the groups consult each other before scheduling major events.

What are your thoughts on the SA budget and the state of the reserves?

I think SA does a pretty good job of managing their budget. I know they keep a really close watch on it and they keep the records really up to date. I think that it’s really important that we keep the mandatory student activity fee mandatory so that we don’t have to draw too much on the reserves, which are there as a backup for the budget to make sure that, in the event of anything unusual happening, that student activities will continue to be supported. Almost all of the student clubs are funded through SA and not the actual school. Of course, we know that the school is massively in debt so it’s important that SA continues to run the budget efficiently so that we don’t lose out on all of the awesome activities that we have as students.

Director of Public Relations

Forrest Regan

Class of 2014

Define the position you’re running for and explain why you’re running.

One of the most important things Public Relations does is work with the referendum and advertise for that. Next year, I would definitely want to advertise for the referendum by having a series of forums leading up to it, which would not only advertise, but get students talking about it and we would be able to hear on SA what the student mandatory activity fees are most important for. Also, anything students want to change about their mandatory student activity fees. Also, anything that is already going on through the SA that people normally don’t know about; anything through the standing committees, because there’s so much stuff going on, but since people aren’t talking about it, no one knows about it.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

Right now, I’m the treasurer for the Academic Affairs Committee. So through that I love seeing where all the mandatory student activity fees go, sort of picking up where the rest of campus funds and tuition funds can’t provide to us. I’ve worked on political campaigns in the past and gone door-to-door talking to people. That advertises for stuff, but it also gets you listening to what people are saying. I feel like having experience listening to people and working with the SA – I’m in the SA office basically every day, doing treasurer stuff, or just hanging out with them – so it’s definitely something that I’m interested in, and learning more and more about every day.

Do you have any plans if you are elected?

Like I said with the referendum – the forums are one of the big things I want to do. Another big thing that I want to try is this year: We had that trip to Albany that got canceled because of poor scheduling and poor advertising. I don’t know if it was so much in the lack of interest, or just lack of logistics that people weren’t able to come. Not only do I actually want to have a trip to Albany, but also I’d love to do it more than once a year – so at least once a semester – and also have someone on SA be responsible for contacting Albany and lobbying for the students, sort of on a full-time basis, so legislators in Albany have a face for the funds that they’re cutting. Other things I want to do, as an SA executive member: I want to visit standing committee meetings periodically and know what’s going on not just through word-of-mouth, but actually be able to experience where all the student mandatory activity fees are going. I’ve talked about the possibility of making the standing committee meetings paperless. I’m open to huge ideas, really anything. I definitely don’t want to limit myself.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

Going through all the debates and speeches, you hear lots of good ideas. There aren’t lots of things that can be changed, but there aren’t so many things that are just horrible right now. But there are definitely things that should be changed for next year. We have KnightLink now, and this year has kind of been the experimental year, but next year I definitely want to get more people registered on that and using it. I want to have every member of SA on KnightLink and already be registered for it, and that can also be for standing committees too. So that would advertise for the standing committee meetings, and let everyone know that you can come to any SA meeting whenever you want. They’re not all that bad. They’re pretty exciting, actually. I’ve always thought SA meetings are fun, even though lots of people think they would be boring.

Thoughts on the budget and the state of the reserves?

We have $300,000 or $500,000 in the reserves. Our budget is around $1.3 million or $1.5 million. I don’t know how much public relations deals with that so much, but I guess PR does help out in informing students that that money is there. One of the things that I’ve realized after working on a standing committee: When we’re on the standing committee, as treasurer, I am basically contacting the clubs and informing them of every possible way they can get their funding. Lots of people think that we’re sort of there to limit people’s funding, when we’re really there to make sure everyone’s getting as much reimbursement as possible. Another thing that goes along with clubs: They have budgets allocated every year, and don’t spend it necessarily, so that money that’s left over in their budgets just goes to the reserves, but they’re totally allowed to spend it all. So advertising the fact that we have all this money that we are allowed to spend, and should be spending, is something that I want to work on too. I guess it’s good to have reserves, but we also don’t need to have money left over every year, so the students need to know about that to be able to use it to the best of their advantages.

What do you feel the role of the SA constitution is?

Everyone says it’s just strictly bureaucratic and unnecessary, but really by having an executive board, you don’t get clubs to ask for diamond-encrusted scissors or whatever. That would happen if there were no bureaucratic systems. So we can do more to streamline it. I know in AAC in the beginning of the year, it was sort of a fad to just waive the first reading of the readings, so any minor budgetary request could be streamlined, which is totally allowed. So people think it’s mainly bureaucratic, but it has a purpose. I enjoy SA meetings. It may be bureaucratic time-delaying stuff, but it’s definitely there for a purpose, and it’s a great way to keep track of our student mandatory activity fees. But they’re fun meetings too! I mean, I don’t think I can convince everyone that it’s a blast, sitting there for three hours on a Wednesday night, but I definitely enjoy it.

Isaac Baskin

Class of 2013

Define the position you're running for and explain why you're running.

I am running for Director of Public Relations, and I’m running because I would like to spread more awareness on campus about what SA does. It’s been said that “information is the oxygen of the modern age,” and I totally agree with that. I think it’s really important that the people that are running our student organization, that are using our money, should be responsible and the only way to make sure that happens is to have the most amount of people in the process; to have the most amount of students involved, because every student is part of SA. I mean, if you go here you pay a mandatory student activity fee, but most people don’t know that. It’s interesting. I was in front of members at one of the forums and the current director of SA asked me to ask this, so I asked, like, “How many people here are in SA?” Three kids raised their hand, but everyone’s part of SA! So my goal, as the next person running, is to have everyone raise their hand.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

This might be a little long, but the most experience I’ve had with public relations—I have a lot—my senior year of high school I started with working for the Mangano campaign. He was running for county executive at the time, and I had to go from door to door, I had to make phone calls, I had to interact with people all day long, and convince people to vote for him. I had to know all the issues; I had to know what was going on. So it was an amazing internship. I had to know everything—from the top-level stuff to the bottom-level stuff—but everything was interacting with people. He ended up winning that election with two hundred fifty votes, so I would like to think that I made a difference—a clear difference there, I think. And when I came here, I brought that over, and what we did was we had the Republican Club. Now, I’m president of Republican Club, but my fall semester freshman year, we were six people, including alumni, in a board room upstairs (Union) just talking amongst ourselves. One day I just sat up and said enough, let’s get out there, lets advertise, and the next semester, after we advertised, we held events, and we had thirty people in the fireside lounge. So we went from six to thirty in the semester. And on top of that I hosted the event for Jane Corwin. She was running for Congress at the time and I got around forty to fifty people in the room at the time, which was a great event. So I know how to advertise; I know how to get out there. What else qualifies me about this is I don’t come from SA—I come from the clubs. Yesterday I was at Psych Club, weeks before I was at Women’s Action Coalition. They had dinner recently, which went really well. I’m in the Republican Club, I’m obviously president of that, and I’m actually on the state committee for that, so I’m heavily involved. On top of that I’ve attended multiple other clubs—Pre-Law Club I actually went to the other week. I’m involved in the student body; I’m not coming from SA; I’m not coming from the top down. I know what’s going on with these clubs; I know how to help them advertise. So one of the main goals about Director of Public Relations is that it’s not kind of a defined position—you make what you have of it. If I am going to advertise and spread awareness, I need to know what’s going on in the clubs, and you can’t get that knowledge unless you go to the clubs. You can go to these events, I believe we went to the Academic Affairs Committee and other committees, where they have clubs represented there, but that’s not being in the club, that’s not learning what the twenty, thirty people in that club have to say. This week I plan on going to a bunch of more clubs, for example the Gay-Straight Alliance. So I’ll be going there. I don’t plan on running a campaign that focuses on anything else but the clubs. That’s what it’s all about, and that’s where you get the most kids. The more participation we have in those clubs, the more participation we have on campus, the more participation we have in the process, which makes the process better. Experience wise, I’ve worked on multiple other campaigns too; I interact with people. I was just at an event meeting the townspeople here, so I’m involved, I know what’s going on, and I have a bunch of ideas to bring to the table.

Do you have any plans if you are elected?

I would like to continue with what the current [Director of Public Relations] Lindsey [Hebell] has started, which is to actually have a sub-committee for PR. One of the big things, I think, is that we don’t have enough personal interaction with our fellow students and we sort of sit up on our pedestals and don’t really ever come down. My experience! I totally forgot about this! Real quickly, is that I work for Kaplan. Kaplan is probably one of the best experiences I could have for this job because I have to go around with these big cards, getting people to sign up on our email list, so I have to interact with hundreds of students each week. And hundreds of new students, because I get commission, I don’t get paid on the students I already have, so it isn’t like I’m seeing the same people … and that’s exactly what PR needs to do. What I learned from that is that going around MJ, going around the Union, going around the ISC and Milne, places like that, and saying to kids, “Well hey, upcoming Psych Club they have child abuse awareness week, they’re having a movie, they’re having this, that.” You know, I’ll sit down with the clubs, I’ll help them advertise for their events—just being able to interact with the students one-on-one, and not being distant, being very personal. If you want things to be spread by word-of-mouth, you need to start people talking. You’ll get a lot more people talking by face-to-face rather than an email, which most people don’t even read. I also think that the sub-committee can help on this because you have a lot more people actually going around, rather than hearing it from just one person. So, those are just some of the ideas; just making a more efficacious campus overall is what I want to really do.

Director of Academic Affairs

Dara Gell

Class of 2013

Define the position you’re running for and explain why you’re running.

I’m running for head of the academic affairs committee, which is the committee that oversees all of the academic clubs and clubs who put on programming for the academic life of Geneseo. If the bio club wants to put on the dinner for the faculty and students, they get the money from us. If the philosophy club wants to put on forums about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, which they like to do, they come to us. It’s a really great committee because it’s where academics and the social aspect of Geneseo come together nicely and it’s where people can find funding to talk to their peers about what their studying, and having fun while doing so. I am currently the secretary of the AAC and I go to all the SA meetings as the Model UN representative. This year, I discovered that I enjoy student politics. My good friend, Justin Shapiro, is the current head of AAC, and he got me involved. It was something he really enjoyed, so he showed me what it was all about. I found that it was a great way to meet people and to get to experience this sort of secret part of student life that shouldn’t be so secret. Once you realize how we get the funding and how it all works it’s an exciting part of college life.

What experience qualifies you for this position?

I am the secretary of AAC, elected at the second meeting, so I know how AAC runs. I go to e-board meetings, I see how the readings are put-together, I know the bi-laws, etc. Justin Shapiro has been so kind as to show me how everything works and how to do things. I’ve really learned how AAC runs. I am also the SA representative for Model UN, so I’ve been to pretty much every meeting and have a lot of experience with those meetings as well. I’m very vocal at meetings because I know that the voice of the student body counts and I’m a part of the student body, which the SA board values. As far as other qualifications go, I am a very responsible person and organized. I’m also a research assistant for the sociology professor Denise Scott. I’m really involved with our Model UN team, which is a great way to learn how to interact with people and practice public speaking, and also has taught me a lot about how politics work.

Do you have any plans if elected?

We’ve started two programs in AAC this year, which are both wonderful programs. We have our professor recognition award that I would love to help grow and advertise more for more student involvement because it’s important to recognize the professors that make a difference in your college experience. Also, Justin Shaprio brought back college bowl, a team trivia tournament, which was a lot of fun. I really think that it’s something that fuses academics and fun, which I love. I really want it to grow and to make sure that it spreads and continues. Another important thing to recognize is that AAC has grown and I want to make sure that we can help people advertise their club’s programs through the resources of AAC. Now that AAC is allowing interdisciplinary minors to join, I want to make sure they understand how our committee works and how to receive funding since they are so new. When you hear academic clubs, you think it’s dorky, but it’s not; it’s really a great way to connect with people of similar interests, which is something I would stress.

Were there any decisions made this past year that you strongly agree or disagree with?

I’m always the person who’s rooting for the person asking for money, so it takes a lot of me to disagree because I think we need to fund clubs and give them opportunities. Of course I haven’t supported all of them, but I was really in favor of the concert getting more funding, which was a big issue. I was one of the people that thought that our mandatory student activity fees don’t reach everyone and we have a lot who pay this fee and don’t get involved with clubs. Model UN has received this funding 10 times over and I’ve greatly benefited from it. But I want to make sure that others can benefit from these fees, so increasing the funds for the concert allows us to get a performer more people will be interested in seeing. So we got Kid Cudi, who I love. A big concert is a great way to reach out to the population of the student body that doesn’t necessarily want to get involved and enjoy a different aspect of college life. I was also in favor of the GSTV funding, which had a bit of a scandal. I think that making GSTV an impressive part of our school would be wonderful because it’s a bit sad looking now. To be able to turn on the TV and not have to see something that doesn’t have the quality of the 60’s or 90’s and really see a modern television set is something of pride for Geneseo and make us feel like we’re a part of the cliché college experience that we can have a wonderful TV station. I don’t blame anyone on either side—mishaps occur. In the end, it’s all about improving our school.