SMC elects SDB, RHA officials
By Sarah Nestor
Saint Mary's Editor
Saint Mary's elected the 2003-04Residence Hall Association [RHA] and Student Diversity Board [SDB] president and vice president.
The candidates for RHA president and vice president were sophomore Shay Jolly and running mate junior Jackie Zins.
Two hundred sixty-two students participated in the RHA online election Tuesday. The Jolly/Zins ticket received 86 percent of the vote, with 7 percent abstaining and 7 percent voting no.
Jolly and Zins' platform "Learn where you live, play where you live and love where you live" focused on increasing relationships with Notre Dame residence halls, strengthening relationships among Saint Mary's residence halls and improving Little Sibs Weekend.
Jolly and Zins first priority is to build a strong association of committed commissioners from the hall councils to make it a "more cohesive group" Zins said.
"Hall council is the main portion of RHA," Jolly said. "The best way to recruit people is to get people involved, so that they enjoy being a part of the hall council."
Jolly and Zins also plan to build on traditional events, such as the all school formal and Little Sibs Weekend. They plan to improve upon Little Sibs weekend by handing out a survey to students to see where improvements need to be made, especially in regards to older siblings that visit during that weekend.
"I wish the older kids would have as mush as much fun as the younger kids," Shay said.
Jolly is the current Little Sibs Weekend chair on RHA and Zins is the publicity cffffkfkhair on RHA.
The sole ticket seeking the position of SDB president and vice president were junior Annmarie Marquez and sophomore Veronica Saavedra.
Two hundred twenty-nine students participated in the SDB election, Maquez/Saavedra receiving 83 percent of the vote; 10 percent voted to abstain and 7 percent no.
Running on the platform theme "We are all unique, See the difference" Marquez and Saavedra want to occasionally hold open SDB meetings where all students will be invited to participate in discussions, implement monthly educational forums, and want to work with admissions on increasing minority student enrollment at Saint Mary's.
"There are a lot of topics that we have come across this year [at SDB] that we haven't been able to address," Marquez said.
Saaverda echoed this sentiment by saying that the monthly educational forums will deal with issues not generally spoken about, such as racism and prejudice.
Although Maquez and Saaverda's first priority is to work with admission counselors and Volunteers in Support of Admission [VISA] to reach out to high schools, that admission counselors normally do not visit, and encourage minority students to attend Saint Mary's.
"We want to increase admissions for minority students," Marquez said. "My idea for the [SDB] admissions commissioner is because it is very hard for a minority to come to a prominently Anglo-American community and we need to show them that it is a supportive environment."
Marquez and Saaverda also plan to continue the work of this past year's SDB by working on the harassment clause and disabilities awareness.
"The harassment clause is a big thing and we do not want to drop the ball," Marquez said.
Students can vote online today until midnight by logging onto the student registration program PRISM and choosing to answer a survey. Once there students can either vote yes, no or to abstain. The candidates need to earn 50 percent, plus one vote of the total vote to be declared the winner.
All News Stories for Thursday, February 13, 2003
