Jesse Watson ’06 was elected President, and Monica Arduini ’06 Vice-President, in the WSA elections last week for the ’05-’06 academic year. Five days of voting last week also yielded class representatives for ’06, ’07, and ’08.
Watson beat the other Presidential candidate, Arijit Sen ’07, by a close margin, with 523 votes compared to Sen’s 495.
“Arijit did very little advertising, it was mostly word of mouth,” Watson said, adding that usually the candidate who does the least campaigning wins the election. “I was a little nervous for a while, and rightly so.”
According to Sen, he did not feel that his status as a rising junior put him at any disadvantage to Watson.
“I think it was pretty fair,” Sen said. “I think I had more underclass support, while Jesse had more support from the juniors and seniors.”
Sen says that he has yet to decide if he will run again for President next year, but he hopes to be elected in the general elections in the fall.
Arduini won by a more substantial margin, with 380 votes in comparison to Jacob Mirsky ’08 who received 317, and Tian (Jerry) Ai ’06 who received 281.
“Both candidates campaigned really well,” Arduini said. “I was definitely shocked by the margin of the win.”
The class representative elections were in line with past years, in which the freshmen class has shown higher participation than upperclassmen.
For the class of ’08, five of the seven candidates for class representative won: Adit Shah, Emily Malkin, Sam Ruth, Emily Morris, and Si Hyun Woo (Dave). All four official candidates from the class of ’07 won: Annie Fox, Nshita ‘Nya’ Roy, Ashley Martin and Ewurabena Hutchful. Write-in Janine Criscuolo won with 15 votes.
The class of ’06 only filled four of the five representative positions, since write-ins must receive at least ten votes to be elected. The only official candidate, Gabe Tabak, won, plus three write-ins: Zach Shemtob, David Wiener and Sean Colon.
Watson said that he hopes to increase student participation in the WSA by using more student surveys on specific issues. According to Watson, in past such surveys have both helped the WSA understand the relevant issues, and helped students understand how the WSA runs.
1080 students voted in the Presidential elections, which is similar to last year, when 1031 students voted.
“It’s always disappointing that more people don’t vote,” Sen said.
Arduini said that she decided to run for Vice-President after a conversation with Emily Polak, current WSA President.
“She made a good point that there are so few chances in life to change the environment you’re living in,” Arduini said. “So when you get that chance you should take it.”
According to Watson, he decided to run for President because he has lots of ideas for improving the WSA. Watson said that there have been a number of resignations from the WSA this year.
“Personally I think that has to do with the length of meetings,” Watson said. “They can go on for up to four hours.”
Watson said he hopes that better structuring meeting agendas will assuage the length of meetings.
One of Arduini’s specific plans for next year is to better coordinate University Relations and the Career Resource Center (CRC), in order to make the CRC more effective at helping students find jobs and internships. As the chair of the Independent Projects Committee, Arduini will oversee the new Cari Macdermott fund, which will provide additional funding for student groups.
Watson is pleased to already see one of his campaign promises fulfilled, since a shuttle to Middletown bars is due to begin operating this Wednesday night. He is also hoping to improve on the current proposal for gender-neutral housing by working with the new Dean of the College.