At the final Council of Organizations meeting of the semester, the body heard from those hoping to run for Student Association (SA) E-board positions for the 2011-2012 school year.
For the position of president, current Senate Chair Terrell Coakley is running unopposed. Coakley said his goals are to keep things in SA transparent and to remind the student population that they are all a part of SA.
Eve Stern is also running unopposed to remain in her current position as executive vice president. After succeeding with the campaign for gender neutral bathrooms, Stern said she’s hoping to move forward with initiatives regarding gender neutrality on campus and to spearhead a movement for gender neutral housing.
Student Sens. Ayanna Thomas and Jonathan Espinosa are both running for the position of vice president of academic affairs and governance. Thomas said that, if elected, she would use her people skills to help students make headway with getting their degrees. Espinosa said he plans to try and communicate student’s problems with General Education (GE) requirements.
Current Vice President of Finance Youssouf Kouyo will also be running for his position again. Kouyo said he hopes to continue educating clubs and organization members on the process of requesting money. Running against Kouyo is Rose Faber, a member of the Budget and Finance Committee (BFC), who discussed her experience in the budget process. Faber said she demonstrated her knowledge working on the walk out/teach-in, educating students on the budget.
Three students are running for the position of Vice President of Programming: Mathew John, Laneesha Bacchus and Jesse Solotoff. The candidates discussed the importance of keeping students involved in the decision-making process when picking performers. They stressed the importance of surveying student interests and being a neutral party in the artist selection process.
Students can login to my.newpaltz.edu between May 4 and 6 to vote for next year’s SA executive board and student senate.