Andrew Golis

A delayed update from Sunday’s UC meeting. After Matt and Ian gave their speeches (Matt’s focused on the tangibles of what needed to be done, Ian’s focused on his rampant alcoholism) each of the three committees (SAC, FiCom and CLC) elected new leaders (as it does every semester).

Who cares? you may be asking. Doesn’t make a difference to me who runs a committee I’ve never heard of, you call out.

Fair enough. I won’t make the case here for why the chairs themselves are important (although they are, the argument is kind of that earnest lecturey type that annoys people). However, to put it all in a sexier light, the chairs usually determine who are considered serious candidates for UC President and Vice President next year. So, for sophomores especially, this was a major step in political positioning.

First, an important thing to note: it’s generally considered good form for Juniors, despite having the right to continue to keep their chairships, to not run again in the spring of their Junior year so that new leadership can take over and learn. So, Christina Adams didn’t run for CLC chair and Teo Nicolais (former FiCom chair) is apparently leaving the country. Matt obviously has new responsibilities that stop him from maintain his SAC chairmanship.

So, to the political positioning!

Sophomore Blake Kurisu of Winthrop was elected chair of FiCom, beating out freshman Julian Han (the owner of the single strangest and most amazing website in the world: www.julianhan.com). Blake is a hard-working, quiet guy. It’s hard to know if this position will make him think of presidential aspirations. FiCom chair has, for the last two years, been the best ticket to getting the College Republican’s endorsement and losing a distant third. It’s unclear that Blake has interest in doing either of those things. His extreme competence and general nice-guy demeanor would make him a logical VP choice, however.

Sophomore Lauren Epstein of Leverett was elected chair of CLC (Campus Life Committee). She beat out freshman Sopen Shah (who also ran and lost for the council Secretaryship to freshman Matt Greenfield). I would assume that Lauren now has presidential aspirations, and rightly so. CLC, however, has long been viewed as a less serious committee. While this may be unfair, unless Lauren is able to be proactive and move the committee forward, rather than simply maintaining its litany of responsibilities (movie nights, shuttles, etc.), she’ll have a harder time than others selling herself as a council leader.

Also on CLC, and expected to run and be reelected to his vice-chair position, sophomore John Voith makes little secret of his long-term ambitions. Hard to know if he would be able to run on the top of the ticket as a vice-chair, so it’s likely that he’ll either have to challenge Lauren for her position in the fall or take a position on the bottom of a ticket.

Finally, SAC (Student Affairs Committee). For the last 3 years, the presidency has been taken over by the SAC Chair: Rohit, Mahan, Glazer. In my mind, there are two reasons for this:

1. people who win their house or yard elections get to choose their committee first, and most often choose SAC. Because of this, SAC is populated with the most electorally skilled and, some might say, natural leader types. Hence, it is logical that the leader of those types will be likely to do well in a campus-wide election.

2. the SAC chair is the President’s right-hand man with the administration. In the last few years, campus policies have been the most public and seemingly important things that the UC has dealt with (UKA, campus safety, mental health, curricular review, Allston, etc. etc.). Because of that, SAC chairs have the ability to pitch their experience with those issues and relationships with the Deans who work with them. God knows we did…

SO, the SAC chair race might be the most politically important. Three people ran for the spot. In a surprising turn, Junior Aaron Chadbourne snagged the chairmanship and waylaid any political/leadership aspirations for sophomores John Haddock of Currier and Tara Gadgil of Mather. While Haddock’s election to Vice Chair will put him in a superior position to Tara to run again in the fall, Chadbourne’s election essentially delays positioning on this front.

Also, in a quick glimpse of who in the freshman class has higher leadership ambitions, Ryan Peterson and Amadi Anene ran against each other for Secretary (Matt Glazer was secretary before he was Chair). Amadi won in a close race. Other freshman who have shown some level of ambition: Sopen Shah (who ran unsuccessfully for Secretary of the Council as well as CLC Chair), Matt Greenfield (who was reelected Council Secretary), Sam Teller (who seriously considered a run for CLC chair) and Julian Han (who lost to Blake for FiCom chair).

So much positioning, so little time!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 8th, 2005 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.