Campus, News

3 potential Student Government slates announced

Tuesday evening marked the beginning of conduction of the spring 2013 Boston University Student Government election, Student Elections Commission officials announced at a small gathering in the SG Office.

While all candidates officially submitted intents to run by Monday evening, campaigning is prohibited until Thursday night at midnight. The Dean of Students office must ensure that each candidate is in good academic and judicial standing and eligible to run before allowing slates to campaign, said SEC Co-Chair Kerry Ford.

“At this time, we are excited to know who will potentially be running in the election, and are excited to announce that all of the potential candidates have chosen to run as part of a slate,” Ford, a School of Education sophomore, said.

While SG officials are elected on an individual basis, this year’s candidates make up three different slates, named Becoming United, The BU Ignition and Can’t B Without U.

“We, the Student Elections Commission, are thrilled to have such a motivated and passionate pool of potential candidates,” Ford said.

Becoming United is comprised of College of Arts and Sciences junior Edmo Gamelin, who is seeking the position of president, CAS freshman Richa Kaul seeking executive vice president, School of Management junior Thatcher Hoyt seeking vice president of internal affairs and SMG sophomore Fiona Chen seeking vice president of finance.

The BU Ignition includes College of Communication junior Dexter McCoy seeking president, CAS freshman Saurabh Mahajan seeking executive vice president, SED freshman Bonnie Tynes seeking vice president of internal affairs and SMG junior Aditya Rudra seeking vice president of finance.

McCoy served as SG president during the fall 2012 semester and Rudra is the current SG president.

Can’t B Without U includes CAS junior Luke Rebecchi seeking president, CAS junior Chris Addis seeking executive vice president, SED sophomore Emily Talley seeking vice president of internal affairs and CAS freshman Noor Turaif seeking vice president of finance.

Ford said she hopes this election attracts more voters than the previous election, which was an emergency election for an interim executive board due to complications in determining the election cycle calendar.

The current SG executive board won an unopposed election in November with votes from about 1,300, or 7 percent, of the undergraduate population.

“Hopefully, with the three slates this semester, they will be competing with each other,” she said “… We’re going to be doing a lot of outreach as well, but hopefully the slates will be reaching out too.”

Voting begins April 22 at noon and ends April 26 at noon, Ford said. Winners will be announced on the evening of April 26.

Ford said SEC outreach opportunities surrounding the election include meet-and-greets with candidates and a debate that is set to take place before voting begins. SEC officials have not yet finalized times and locations for these events.

The first will take place April 12 in the George Sherman Union Link, involving “coffee and conversation” with candidates from all three slates, Kerry said.

“We’re going to reach out to all parts of campus to make sure everyone gets involved in the election,” she said.

SG Executive Vice President Lauren LaVelle said she is hoping for a large voter turnout from students not already involved in SG.

“In general, I’m really excited to see so many strong and passionate student leaders on campus running for the Executive Board of Boston University Student Government,” LaVelle, an SMG junior, said. “I’m excited to see what happens.”

SG Assistant Director of Advocacy Avi Levy said each slate will advocate for different issues on campus.

“I think this is going to be a very interesting election because it’s going to determine how Student Government runs in the future,” Levy, a CAS sophomore, said. “There are very different ideas coming to the table.”

One Comment

  1. Luke and Edmo are both superb people, glad to see them running (albeit opposing).

    Best of luck to both of you folks.