Despite the absence of an Executive Council president for the past several months, the Student Council (StuCo) has been operating without significant difficulty under the leadership of Vice President for Student Life Brian Drolet '05 and VP for Entertainment Nurain Fuseini '06, according to Treasurer Grace Gallick '06. With elections slated for early October, StuCo members anticipate a relatively smooth transition following the appointment of the next president of the student body.
In lieu of scheduling a special election at the beginning of this school year to put a new president in place as quickly as possible, the BoE resolved to hold the election for Executive Council president on the same date as the freshman class elections in early October.
This year's presidential vote provides a clean slate for StuCo, whose operation has been hindered for nearly seven months by a series of mishaps, beginning with the reorganization mandated by the passage of a new constitution and ending with the invalidation of three consecutive elections.
With the departure of the two former chairs of the Board of Elections (BoE), Matt Bouloubasis '05 and Rick Aseltine '05, and the appointment of a new chair, Michael Seibert '05, this year proves to be a veritable fresh start for many of the parties involved.
The task at hand and most immediate concern, said Director of Student Involvement Jeff Groden-Thomas, was not the rapid selection of a new head of StuCo, but the guarantee that a temporary government assuming all the tasks of the president would be effective and satisfactory in the interim.
"The summer months are among the most important periods of preparation for StuCo. The students who needed to be here were here. They had to prepare by setting up this year's meetings and work with the committees on entertainment and finance, which they've done."
"We're making sure that things run smoothly while we don't have a president," said Drolet. "That essentially implies that Nurain and I are running StuCo."
He continued, "StuCo was in disarray at the end of last school year and we're still working to get it back together. I would say that things are definitely going okay.
"As far as taking care of the duties of StuCo -- both administrative and student life concerns -- we've already hosted a highly successful club night, and administrative tasks don't get rolling until a few weeks into the semester."
When StuCo deals with administrative matters, it is usually because something of concern has specifically been brought to the attention of the group. Especially of late, StuCo has focused mostly on student life.
The coming presidential election pits senior Soren Gandrud against junior Hyder Syed in a runoff that resulted from a tied election, then an invalidated second runoff. Freshmen will not vote in these elections, as they were not present for last year's election.
In a rare change of procedure, seniors, who were juniors at the time of last year's election, will be able to cast votes.
Groden-Thomas said, "I think that ideally we'd like to have a president in right now. In order to maintain the democratic process, the last thing we want to do is rush the race.
"We have a strong council this year; the Executive Council has some veterans and some new people, and while I imagine they wish they had a president to oversee everything, they've been operating pretty well."
Drolet added that though things have operated relatively smoothly for StuCo, the need for a president is clear.
"There definitely should be one person that is ultimately responsible for StuCo. As far as that is concerned, we need this runoff election between the two remaining candidates.
"I wouldn't say we're in a state of crisis, no. But it is important that we get the ball rolling and elect a president."
StuCo has not yet held a meeting, but their weekly assembly, open to students, will begin within a week or so.
One of the larger tasks of StuCo is dealing with the Student Activities Commission (SAC), which last year was a potential victim of the sudden disorientation facing StuCo.
SAC appropriates a certain amount of funding for student groups on campus who file with the Commission as class A, B or C groups. Gallick, as treasurer of the Executive Council, heads the SAC, which is essentially the financial branch of StuCo.
"The finance committee oversees the budget; it is an auditing force of StuCo," according to Groden-Thomas. He continued by saying that the SAC was not affected by the absence of a president, as oversight is the responsibility of the treasurer of the Executive Council.
Despite abundant problems marring last year's various elections, Groden-Thomas is optimistic about this year's round.
"I'm not worried about things going wrong this year. We are very aware of the issues that were problems last year. The BoE will never be out of controversy; there will always be a winner, and there will always be a loser; there will always be a happy candidate, and there will always be an angry candidate."
