Yaw Agyenim-Boateng ’05 won the senior class presidency during the election held the week before spring break. Natalia Ortiz ’05 was voted Vice President, Thang Le Ngoc ’05 as Treasurer and Marcella Martinez ’05 as Secretary.
The class officers’ duties will include organizing senior cocktails and senior week, in addition to assisting in finding a commencement speaker for the 2005 graduation ceremony.
Of the approximately 725 members of the junior class, 306 students voted. The candidates agreed that apathy is a big problem at Wesleyan when it comes to campus-wide elections.
Xiomara Lorenzo ’05, who finished 19 votes behind Agyenim-Boateng’s 124 votes in the presidential election, said that she wished more students had voted.
“I was more disappointed with the voter turnout than with than with the actual results,” Lorenzo said.
Many students said they agreed that the elections were timed poorly, since they took place immediately before spring break.
“We were in the middle of midterms. I didn’t have time to care,” said Amanda Binns ’05, who did not vote in the elections.
Agyenim-Boateng said he agreed that the timing was poor, but added that candidates must accept some responsibility for the low response to elections.
“We as candidates could have done a much better job and could have campaigned more,” he said.
Agyenim-Boateng said that he used emails to reach as many students as possible, rather than focusing his efforts on flyers. Lorenzo said she talked with people one-on-one as much as possible in her campaign and also used flyers.
Le Ngoc, the only candidate running for Treasurer, did not actively campaign.
Now that elections are over, the winners are looking forward to shaping the senior year of the class of 2005. In particular, the officers agree that senior cocktails need to be revamped.
“This year there have been issues with first semester seniors attending cocktails,” Agyenim-Boateng said.
According to Ortiz, this issue arose from inadequate funding for cocktails.
“I will try my best to ensure that we’re out of any financial difficulties,” Le Ngoc said.
“I also want to make sure that we get music everyone can enjoy, and get the drinks that people want,” Ortiz said.
Agyenim-Boateng, who has attended senior cocktails through his work as vice president of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA), said that students need to utilize the right venues to express their dissatisfaction with cocktails.
“Don’t just complain at the venue, come straight to the officers,” he said.
“I ran because I want to make sure that senior year is fun and memorable for everyone,” Ortiz said.
“My immediate reason for running was fear of going to really bad cocktails, plus I figured I could do at least as well as the other candidates,” Agyenim-Boateng said.
According to Le Ngoc, he ran because he has two years of experience on the WSA and experience on the Student Budget Committee, which he said are useful for the position of treasurer.
“I had been thinking of running since last semester,” Ortiz said. She had an unusual experience campaigning since she is currently living in New York City as part of the Urban Education Semester program.
“I sent out a lot of emails and tried to use word-of-mouth,” she said. Ortiz added that her twin brother, Nicholas, and Lorenzo greatly assisted her campaign on campus.
Martinez won the position of secretary as a write-in candidate, garnering ten votes.
“I didn’t originally plan on running for senior class secretary, and it was only after I realized that no one was running for the position that I asked my friends to write me in” she said. “I realized that the Senior Class Officers can’t be fully effective unless they have all of the positions filled.”
Members of the class of 2005 will be able to send comments on cocktails and other senior class events to seniorclass@wesleyan.edu.
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