Morgan DeBaun

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Position: President
Year: Sophomore
Majors: Education, political science
Hometown: St. Louis

John Harrison York

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Position: VP of programming
Year: Sophomore
Major: Political dcience
Hometown: Jackson, Miss.

Eliot Walker

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Position: VP of finance
Year: Junior
Major: Computer science
Hometown: Falls Church, Va.

Cody Katz

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Position: VP of public relations
Year: Sophomore
Major: Biomedical engineering
Hometown: Weston, Conn.

Kirsten Miller

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Position: VP of administration
Year: Sophomore
Majors: Economics and strategy
Hometown: Omaha, Neb.

The Spring 2010 Student Union election was the biggest in modern SU history, with a total of 2,392 ballots cast.

Morgan DeBaun led her entire [open] slate to victory, winning by a vote of 53.4 percent to Bold slate’s Nate Ferguson’s 42.3 percent. The closest race was for vice president of programming, with John Harrison York (50.2 percent) beating Tricia Bailey (47.8 percent) by 48 votes. The most lopsided race was the contest for vice president of finance, with current Treasury Speaker Eliot Walker (59.1 percent) beating Olivia Hassan (38.8 percent) by 401 votes.

With the win, [open] laid out its plans for the rest of the semester.

Empowering students

DeBaun said that the slate is currently working on a plan to take advantage of one of Trevor Mattea’s constitutional amendments that allows any student to appeal to Treasury. This amendment was passed in the election with 80 percent of the votes.

“Too often students on our campus have an idea or vision on our campus, but don’t know where to turn to for resources. Our plan takes a new and creative approach to receiving SU funds and will help alleviate this problem,” DeBaun said.

DeBaun said that members of her slate are discussing the plan with members of SU and administrators, and hope to release it for feedback in the coming week.

Appointing the chair of the Diversity Affairs Council

Voters also approved an amendment creating the Diversity Affairs Council. The executive branch must now appoint a chair for this council, and publicity to apply for this chairmanship will begin on Monday.

“Our administration is committed to increasing dialogue and collaboration between different groups on campus,” DeBaun said. “This is a formidable task since the campus is made up of multiple communities with great degrees of heterogeneity within communities.”

DeBaun said that chair of the Diversity Affairs Council will be crucial to help further realize this goal.

Reducing over-programming and increasing large-scale events

DeBaun said that Vice President of Programming-elect York would be meeting with student groups that plan large-scale events on campus such as Ashoka, Dance Marathon and Team 31. To decrease the amount of over-programming, an outline of an events calendar for next semester would be created and distributed to all student group presidents and University administrators. This would be meant to prevent programming issues such as the scheduling conflict that occurred when Ashoka’s Diwali show was the same date as Dance Marathon, causing scheduling issues for organizers and participants alike.

Furthermore, DeBaun hopes to solve the problem at its root by meeting with both newly elected and re-elected Treasury members in order to prevent the issue of funding several large events on the same day, which has happened several times this past year.

Finally, the slate hopes to reorganized the Social Programming Board in order to improve the variety of entertainment options for next year. The Social Programming Board currently consists of Campus Programming Council, Gargoyle Committee and Team 31.

Junior Trevor Mattea (bottom left) testified before Student Union Constitution Council late Tuesday night as one of his supporters held a sign that says “Give the People What They Want” with 900 tally marks. The Constitutional Council held a fact-finding session in order to define what constituted a valid signature and whether a petition can be split up into multiple items on the ballot. Mattea is being questioned for how he went about collecting the over 900 signatures needed to put his proposed amendments on the ballot for the upcoming SU election. His amendments seek to restructure various parts of SU. As of press time, Constitutional Council had yet to make a decision. The ballot is set to be finalized at noon today, and unless Constitutional Council makes a decision blocking the petition, the Election Commission will go ahead with the measure. (Matt Lanter | Student Life)

Over the past two weeks Trevor Mattea has sought signatures for nine proposed amendments to SU’s constitution. Some of these amendments include allowing undergraduate students who are abroad to vote in elections and run for office and allowing the president to propose the general budget. Mattea has already collected well over the 900 signatures that are required to put these amendments on the ballot in the upcoming SU elections. But an anonymous grievance lodged against Mattea alleges that his methods of collecting these signatures violate constitution protocol. Should the majority of the five judges on the Constitutional Council rule against him on Tuesday, his proposal will be dead in the water.

The grievance submitted to the Council does not elaborate on the nature of Mattea’s alleged infraction. Mattea said that Associate Justice Justin Taylor, a sophomore, wrote in an e-mail that the hearing will answer the question of when a signature on a petition to amend the Constitution is valid. Additionally, the hearing will determine if a petition proposing a body of Constitutional amendments signed by 15 percent
 of the constituency of Student Union must be voted on as one 
unit or if the amendments can be voted on separately.

These are legitimate questions so far as they go. As Americans we take some pride in the rigorous discourse that any change to our constitution entails. But we fear in this case, undue regard for procedure might strangle much needed reform.

The argument appears to be that since Mattea intends to try each measure independently, he should have sought signatures for each amendment. Or, conversely, that his amendments currently deserve only one referendum.

The student judges have the responsibility to ensure that Mattea’s amendments see the light of day. But such an outcome is by no means promised. The court could very well decide to have Mattea’s initiatives summarily rejected. An individual student trying to enact change of such magnitude within SU is unprecedented, and preventing these proposed changes from going on the ballot would create a dangerous precedent.

It would have been practically impossible for Mattea to have gathered the 8,100 signatures needed for his nine amendments. We can presume that a defeat for Mattea will discourage such bold attempts in the future. It therefore strikes us as oddly self-defeating that SU, a group long-plagued by the apathy of its community, might smother the only issue in recent memory about which 15 percent of people demonstrably care. The message it would send to Mattea’s 900, and to the student body at large is potentially dangerous: SU doesn’t care what you think. For his part, Mattea is confident he followed the rules.

“I think I did everything honestly, and my arguments are sound. To the degree that this is something vague, I think the council should err on the side of the students,” Mattea said.

We couldn’t agree more.

Last week in Senate, the new legislation for the creation of the DAC passed with 22 votes in favor, two against and one abstention.

According to the new legislation, the DAC’s mission is to “foster connections between members of the campus community, and address issues so as to bring diversity to the forefront of campus-wide and administrative concerns.”

Diversity refers to that of sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, class and philosophy, among many other ways of judging people.

People who supported the legislation hope that by having a council, SU will be able to focus its attention on diversity in a long-term, institutionalized way instead of simply throughout the next year or two until current SU officials have moved on and new ones have come in, bringing a whole new set of issues with them.

According to Sackett, the DAC will have several purposes.

“The DAC has three purposes: to serve as a nexus for student groups and students interested in issues of diversity, to work with Senate to implement policy changes related to diversity, and to help coordinate diversity training efforts present on campus,” Sackett said.

Sackett mentioned issues such as the Mothers bar incident and Celebration Weekend as some topics that have recently spurred discussion.

“[It will enable] rapid action planning for instances like racial profiling,” said senior De Nichols, president of Connect 4.

Further, there is redundant programming and overprogramming on campus, Nichols said.

“[The DAC will] unite and possibly combine some ideas and efforts,” Nichols said.

In regards to the diversity training on campus, the DAC will become a resource in addition to a collaboration center.

Student groups such as Safezone, SARAH, Mixed and Uncle Joe’s all provide diversity training, but supporters say that this will allow them to be better coordinated.

Nichols hopes that Greek Life will also be a part of this collaboration too.

The next step comes Tuesday when Treasury votes on the new legislation.

According to Sackett, a change in the constitution requires a two-thirds vote in both Senate and Treasury.

“This is an opportunity for Treasury to show the student body whether they’re committed to diversity,” said Senior Class President and Fernando Cutz, co-chair of WU/FUSED.

Sackett, Cutz and Nichols all hope that Treasury votes in favor of the DAC, but they will have to wait until Tuesday to see what happens.

“I expect that they’ll pass it because I have faith that Treasury wants to have student groups they fund work together,” Sackett said.

Cutz agreed with Sackett but also mentioned that they have been a bit less certain about the creation of the DAC.

“It is my greatest hope that they’ll pass it,” Cutz said. “I think that Treasury has been a little more hesitant with the DAC and we’re not exactly sure why.”

Cutz did mention, however, that if the Treasury does not give this legislation two-thirds of the votes, there would be alternative ways of making sure the DAC is formed.

“We have backup plans if they don’t [pass it],” Cutz said.

If the legislation is passed, the DAC will be formed in late March, once the next administration is and sworn in. They then will appoint a DAC chair who will have to be approved by both Senate and Treasury.

This process has been a long one, making the passed version of the legislation the 13th draft.

When Jeff Nelson was originally approached about the issue, according to Nichols, he said that there was not anything in SU about “diversity affairs” yet.

Before being passed in Senate, the legislation previously passed the University Initiatives Committee with 10 votes in favor and zero votes opposing it.

“This has been a long process and a lot of people have been involved,” Sackett said.

The slate’s formal candidacy announcement for SU executive office will take place in Umrath Lounge on Wednesday, according to a Facebook event created by sophomore Morgan DeBaun, current SU vice president for public relations.

DeBaun will be announcing her slate, which will be called the [open] slate.

Vice President of Administration Nate Ferguson announced his Bold slate’s run last week.

[open] will consist of sophomore Kirsten Miller, junior Eliot Walker, Sophomore John Harrison York and sophomore Cody Katz, who will be running for vice president of administration, vice president of finance, vice president of programming and vice president of public relations, respectively.

“I think we have a very diverse group of people,” DeBaun said.

Walker has served in a different position in SU Treasury every term. He has held the position of Budget Committee chairman and is currently speaker of the Treasury.

Miller has served as a senator in SU since her freshman year and has led many of SU’s initiatives. York has served as a Congress of the South 40 (CS40) representative, and Katz is a first-term senator.

According to DeBaun, the slate aims to have students approach them with questions so that they might cater to the desires of the student body.

“Part of the reason we wanted to announce in public is because we thought it was important for students to ask us questions and ask about our platform,” DeBaun said. “We wanted them to have a more interactive experience with students.”

By making the announcement in public, [open] hopes to make the slate available to the undergraduates.

“We felt like by having this announcement that we could truly be representative of the student body by giving them the opportunity to weigh in on our platform,” DeBaun said. “We want to figure out what students really are for.”

DeBaun expects a good turnout at the event. The Facebook event currently lists more than 90 people as attending.

“We talked to a lot of students over the past two weeks and bounced a lot of concerns off of students,” DeBaun said. “I think we’re going to do well. I would determine success based on how much feedback we get.”

The aim of the event, according to the invitation, will be to “share your thoughts about the State of Wash. U. and discuss ways to improve our campus.” In addition, figures on campus will be discussing pertinent issues such as sustainability and political advocacy.

Ferguson said that he is enthused by the prospects of a competitive SU election this year.

“I’m excited that there will be competition,” Ferguson said. “This is the first time there has been serious slate competion in the last couple of years.”

Students interested in running for an individual position or as a slate must turn in their candidacy packets to the SU office by Feb. 22.

Students line up at the village stiry-fry line at dinner time. The village now offers stir-fry until 9 p.m on school nights. (Matt Lanter | Student Life)

The change, which was initiated with the beginning of the semester, initially started off slowly.

To make people more aware of the new hours, Student Union is creating a raffle.

Buy food during the new hours and enter your name into a raffle for gift certificates to places such as Best Buy and the campus bookstore. Each student can only be entered once. There will be five winners.

Student Union is paying for the prizes with fundraising money they raised themselves.

“The raffle is just an added bonus for students to take advantage of extended hours,” Vice President of Public Relations Morgan DeBaun said. “I think it will benefit students that we have these later hours but I think this incentive will make people recognize that it’s an improvement.”

Some students are unaware of the extended hours, and the raffle is designed to combat this.

“I think the raffle is a fantastic idea because most people are unaware of the hours,” said sophomore Thomas Roach, a Lopata House resident. “They’ve heard of them being introduced, but don’t know they’ve been implemented. When I tell them there are extra hours, I get looks of disbelief. And everyone loves raffles.”

Many think that those who weren’t involved with implementation of the change aren’t aware of it.

“The [students] who fought for it are the ones who are going to use it most,” said sophomore Lexi Klein, who lives on the South 40.

DeBaun said, “I don’t know if it’s going to get people. They’re not going to be that excited about the prize but it’s more we’re going to be promoting the extended hours, and this is an added incentive. The first week of the pilot was slower than expected with fewer people coming to extended hours. However, as time went on there was a significant increase in the volume of people eating during the new hours.

“At this point we’re very happy how it’s going,” said Jill Duncan, the director of marketing for Dining Services.

The hours were chosen after a series of surveys and interviews with students to find out exactly what they wanted and what times would work best.

“The goal was to address needs of students wanting late-night dining options,” Duncan said.

Dining Services has been working with Student Union to set up the raffle.

“I definitely do think SU is very good at promoting these types of things to the students, and we’re definitely supportive and will support it any way we can,” Duncan said.

Bon Appétit Resident District Manager Nadeem Siddiqui is optimistic about the extended hours.

“We need to run the pilot program and keep a close eye and review data with [the] Student Union and University,” he said. “My hope is that the program continues, and I am very proud of our team in making this a success. We need to continue to receive feedback as how we can improve. So far it has received good reviews”.

Siddiqui said that the program is currently covering the cost of keeping the Village dinning area open later.

The village now offers stir-fry until 9 p.m. (an hour later than

before) and the grill is open until 2 a.m. on weekends (extended from midnight). At night, it is host to a number of breakfast and comfort foods like chicken, waffles, eggs and bacon.

“I haven’t been hungry late at night, but I do think [the extended hours] are a great idea,” junior David Kajander said.

He said he would probably use the extended hours later in the year.

Dining Services will have conclusive results about the success of the pilot after the first six weeks of the program.

The raffle will start on Monday and continue through the week before spring break.

“Who doesn’t love a chance to get something free?” Duncan said.

The Bold Slate is running for SU executive positions in March.

Student Union Vice President of Administration Nate Ferguson announced on Tuesday that he will be running for SU president as the head of the Bold Slate, which is the first slate to announce its candidacy for SU executive positions.

Bold Slate is the first slate to announce its candidacy for the 2010-2011 school year. Candidacy packets are due to the SU office by Feb. 22. More slates are anticipated to announce their candidacy in the coming weeks.

The Bold Slate is comprised of Ferguson (president), Mike Post (vice president of administration), Olivia Hassan (vice president of finance), Tricia Bailey (vice president of programming) and Ehi Okoruwa (vice president of public relations). Each member currently holds or has held an SU position except Bailey, who was an executive for Mr. Wash. U.

The name of the slate is intended to stimulate action by the student body.

“We really wanted to embolden the student body to be able to feel comfortable coming to SU and talking about what issues they are passionate about,” Ferguson said. “We also won’t be afraid to be bold and challenge the status quo if it is harming the students.”

Three central ideas surround Bold Slate’s campaign. First, the slate wants to make SU more accessible to students, help people feel comfortable approaching SU and see it as a tool for advocacy and event planning.

“We want SU to be seen as a resource—a place where students can go for help with PR and event planning­—and also for SU to be seen as an advocacy tool…not just seen as a cash cow,” Ferguson said.

Second, Ferguson wants to push SU to be more strategic in its actions. As a part of this goal, the slate will also create a five-year improvement plan for the body.

“I want to help student groups…by reducing over-programming, and then also I want to make it more strategic to create a five-year plan to help SU combat its internal instability,” Ferguson said.

In the final component of the plan, the Bold Slate hopes to improve the student experience by increasing school pride and increasing campus card functionality so that it may be used off campus.

Equally important to the slate is making its members available to the University community.

“We want to have one-on-one interactions with students by going to student groups’ meetings,” Ferguson said. “Another component of outreach is I want to hold office hours for execs at various places around campus so that students who don’t go to SU have access to SU execs,” Ferguson said. “I also want to have comment boxes all around campus to say what is wrong with Student Union or campus as a whole.”

Ferguson said that the slate looks forward to working with University administrators.

“I have a lot of relationships with administrators, and as a lot of people know, Wash. U. is built on relationships, so having those relationships will be key,” Ferguson said. “The president role has to be balanced with relationships with administrators and not being afraid to stand up for students.”

The Bold Slate plans to campaign in many ways, including traditional methods like distributing flyers and establishing Facebook groups. Ferguson also plans to campaign through direct contact with individual students.

“As we’re doing next year with active outreach, I want to have those one-on-one interactions with students and have our slate get to know the student body better than we already do,” Ferguson said.

Previously, gender-neutral housing was available only in the Village and Greenway.

The expansion comes in response to pressure by organizations such as Student Union and the Pride Alliance during the past few years.

“The Office of Residential Life aims to treat students as adults and encourages them to make well-thought-out decisions,” reads the application for gender-neutral housing.

The Student Union Senate passed a resolution in December 2008 urging the University to expand gender-neutral housing. The resolution includes information from a December 2006 survey, which found that 74 percent of students would consider gender-neutral housing if it were available to upperclassmen.

“This is an incredible step for the University in showing its support for students’ desires and students’ needs,” said senior Chase Sackett, the current speaker of the Senate and former Senate sponsor of the resolution. “I think it’s a testament to the role students play in these processes that make a difference in our lives on campus. I’m very excited the University has made this crucial decision, and I’m excited to see how it plays out next year.”

Students applying for gender-neutral housing must hand in their applications in person to ResLife instead of through WebSTAC. They can apply only in rounds 1 and 2.

Applicants must sign a gender-neutral housing agreement before they can apply, stating that they have considered the implications of gender-neutrality and have discussed their decision and received support from whoever is responsible for payment. The suites must also be filled for the entire academic year.

An estimated 30 colleges and universities across the country permit gender-neutral housing, according to the National Student Genderblind Campaign.

The system, which is pending approval, would offer money or extra publicity to student groups that take measures to hold sustainable events.

Student Body President Jeff Nelson said that Student Union considered mandating sustainability to student groups and issuing penalties to those groups that were not sustainable, but decided to implement a system of incentives instead.

“We conducted a survey of the student body, and overwhelmingly students were not in favor of penalties and mandates,” Nelson said. “There was a lot of support for incentives.”

The plan that Student Union is considering would award credits to student groups that take specific actions to be more sustainable. Student groups could then redeem those credits for financial rebates or publicity resources, Nelson said.

“If a student group decides to buy T-shirts that are local, which would be considered more sustainable…they would get a certain number of credits for that action,” Nelson said.

Other measures that student groups can take to earn credits would include ordering food from local vendors, holding events outside to use natural sunlight instead of artificial light, buying smaller soda cans, and encouraging recycling.

Once a student group accrues a certain number of credits, it could redeem those credits for money toward the group’s next event or for prime space on the Underpass. While Category III student groups would not be eligible for financial credits, all student groups could obtain publicity credits.

Student Union also discussed the possibility of student groups holding raffles at events with prizes such as previous years’ T-shirts for students who came environmentally aware with their own water bottle.

“It’s sort of a dual benefit because we’re utilizing the old materials that we have that otherwise would just be thrown away or sitting in storage forever, and we’re also encouraging people to bring water bottles to events and reduce the usage of cups,” Nelson said.

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Campus Sustainability Matt Malten stressed the importance of implementing sustainability programs through SU.

“We strongly believe that the peer-peer interaction from students to their fellow classmates is really ideal,” Malten said.

In addition to SU’s efforts to increase sustainability, Chancellor Mark Wrighton released the draft Strategic Plan for Sustainable Operations. The University also announced a series of forums where students, faculty and staff may discuss the draft plan and sustainability measures.

“One of several reasons why we’re doing these forums is to give ourselves the opportunity to engage the entire campus community, including students, to help us achieve our goals,” Malten said.

Another goal of the forums is to hear students’ ideas and suggestions for increasing sustainability. The forums will take place on the Danforth, Medical, North and West campuses. Malten will also hold forums on the South 40.

Malten has worked with student events, primarily W.I.L.D. and ThurtenE, to address sustainability.

“The enthusiasm and the commitment that the students that we worked with to really make those events as green as possible has been tremendous,” Malten said. “I think we all agree that there’s always room for continual improvement.”

Students have reacted positively to the idea of sustainable events, Nelson said.

“Groups have been very receptive to the idea of sustainability,” Nelson said. “I think that it’s something they want to do already, and if we encourage it using incentives where they can get a little extra money to put toward an event later on or they can get a PR resource or something like that, I think it’ll just ramp up the adoption of some of these sustainable measures that we’re outlining.”

Finances

First on our list is the question of finances. As the effects of this disastrous economic season continue to ripple outward, the administration must now prepare for another round of painful budget cuts. We have, in these pages, previously commended the administration for its commitment to its students on financial aid. The “Opening Doors to the Future” challenge grant launched last September is a $150 million fund drive aimed at private individuals and corporations and is set to continue until 2014. Its explicit aim is to insure that Wash. U. can retain its commitment to economic diversity. We applaud the drive’s intentions though we wish it didn’t involve calling our parents at dinner time.

Safety

Following the recent assault of a graduate student off campus, multiple apartment robberies and a history of muggings in the area, the University has promised to install more blue light phones and to move laundry rooms out of off-campus apartment basements where possible. We urge the University and WUPD to be more proactive in protecting students, especially off campus.

We hope that students will work together with law enforcement in order to ensure that crime rates drop in the upcoming year.

Overprogramming

We applaud Student Union for resolving to address its scheduling issues. In the past, students wishing to attend many SU-sanctioned functions found themselves making painful choices on overloaded weekends. Thus, the announcement that SU is attempting to space things out this semester is a welcome one. This is an easy fix to make, and we hope that Student Union delivers on its promise.

WebSTAC improvements

Last semester, the editorial board was pleasantly surprised by the innovations to WebSTAC that were quietly implemented. The addition of a map to the student schedule pane was particularly useful. While we long to see a wholesale redesign of the system that unifies all of the portals that students use most frequently, we thank whoever is responsible for improving the moribund interface all the same. WebSTAC still remains cranky and archaic by modern standards, however; as such, we ask that you keep it up, whoever you are.

Sustainable operations

In a recent campus-wide e-mail, the chancellor also directed our attention to Sustainable Operations Leadership Council’s new Strategic Plan for Environmentally Sustainable Operations. This plan is long overdue and we are happy to see that it was finally released. The plan details how the school intends to square its rapidly expanding square-footage with its goals of sustainability. Their stated intention in making the plan public at this stage is to invite feedback from the student body. If you have an opinion about campus sustainability, we suggest you check it out.

Summary

We might sum up many of the above points by relating that one of the most impressive changes we perceived over the last semester was a sustained interest in student activism. From the Right Side of History’s controversial co-opting of the W.I.L.D. stage to the Mothers dress-code violation controversy, we were gratified to see so much of the campus wrapped up in the causes of the community. Above all else we’d like to see your enthusiasm continue unabated.