Students select new senators

Students voted this week to elect 11 Undergraduate Student Government senators for the 2010 - 11 academic year.

Reaching more than 30 percent of the undergraduate student body, this year’s turnout for the senator elections was higher than it had been in previous years.

Of the 11 senators, eight have served on USG before either as senators or as council chairs, said USG Executive Vice President Cassady Adams. The other three have never served on USG before.          

“They’re great, and I’m excited to work with the new members,” Adams said. “We need new people to bring new spirit and enthusiasm, and the people who were re-elected were great. I’m excited they’ll be on USG again.”

USG President Lauren Aronson said she thinks the senators who are new to USG will be valuable additions to the organization.

“It’s a very interesting mix of incumbents and new incoming senators, which I think will freshen USG’s stance on things,” Aronson said.

Aronson said she recognized all of the 33 candidates’ faces and names. She said she encourages students who did not win senator elections to find alternate ways of becoming involved with USG.

“It was exciting to see how many people really want to get involved, and I hope that all the students who did not receive one of the 11 seats for this coming term will consider the alternatives and other avenues for getting involved with USG,” Aronson said. “For instance, we’re going to have a lot of transition with council chairs and being responsible for different student organizations. The other way to get involved is through your individual school.”

Adams said that all of the candidates’ campaigns brought more enthusiasm and school spirit to campus. Though Adams said candidates did submit infractions to her, they were minor and eventually dismissed.

“All of them ran fantastic campaigns and followed the rules and were very meticulous,” Adams said.

Aronson said she was happy that the turnout was so high and that the elections went almost flawlessly.

“We had a clean campaign,” Aronson said, “We had a couple of infractions but nothing that hindered anyone’s votes.”

Miles Babin, who received one of the senator seats, said he conducted his campaign from The Republic of Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa where he is studying abroad, he ran his campaign online.

“I got in touch with a few of my friends and asked them to spread the word,” Babin said. “Additionally, with my platform I sought to emphasize rather than ignore my unique position 10,000 miles away from New Orleans. After all, how many people run for USG from Africa?”