The Student Association elected Dominick Chillemi and Kristal Harris as representatives to the Board of Trustees. Chillemi, a junior public policy major and SA representative, and Harris, a junior accounting and information science technology major, were culled by an assembly vote from a pool of five applicants, all of whom were approved for nomination by the assembly.

As the primary liaisons between the student body and the Board of Trustees, Chillemi and Harris will be required to give a five minute presentation at the monthly meeting of the board’s executive committee, said SA President Andrew Thomson. The representatives typically take turns preparing the presentations, although both must be present at every meeting. The new representatives’ terms will begin at the start of the fall semester and will expire at the end of the spring semester, Thomson said.

Chillemi, a three-year SA veteran, said he hopes to build a relationship of respect with the trustees, which will in turn help the trustees respect the wants and needs of students. He added his strategy will be to aggressively pursue students’ interests without being antagonistic.

“I believe that when you are elected to be a representative from one body to another body, you should have only one goal and that is to increase the effectiveness of communication,” Chillemi said.

Several SA members spoke out in support of Harris’ nomination, citing her active involvement in student life on campus and the need for a non-SA representative to the board.

“It might be good to have a SA and a non-SA member because it will help to give that outside look,” representative Jayson Weinstein, a senior political science major, said.

In other SA news:

n The SA Board of Elections and Membership released the preliminary findings of an assessment of last semester’s online election system. The BEM is now looking into ways to remedy several problems experienced with last semester’s election.

“For our first online election, it was pretty good,” said BEM chairwoman Jessica Cordova, a sophomore secondary education and history major. “But obviously, we need to make some changes.”

Among the proposed changes are provisions to allow State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry students to vote using the online system rather than paper ballots and a protocol to be used in the event of a system failure.

n The SA reported the results of an informal survey conducted to determine students’ major concerns on campus. Among the most frequent responses were concerns about campus safety, complaints about a lack of diversity on campus and several complaints about the university’s involvement in programs with the U.S. military.

Thomson said a more scientific survey of student concerns would be conducted before the findings are brought to university administrators.

Published on April 21, 2003 at 12:00 pm