The ballots were flying at the Student Association’s first meeting of the year as the assembly elected three members to cabinet positions and voted to confirm five more.

The 58th Session’s first general assembly meeting took place Monday evening in Maxwell Auditorium. Elections were held for speaker, recorder and parliamentarian. The assembly also voted to confirm President Boris Gresely’s cabinet nominations.

The first election of the night was for the speaker position. This position was created as part of changes to the SA constitution that were approved last semester. The speaker facilitates discussion, and they do not vote unless a tie-breaking vote needs to be cast, said Ben Jones, 58th session parliamentarian who proposed many of the constitutional changes last semester, including bringing back the position of speaker.

Jones was the only nominee for the position and was confirmed by a unanimous vote. He said he thinks the speaker position can be used to empower the assembly and he hopes to create more committees within SA to better serve the students’ needs.

In the only contested election of the night, Malik Evans, a freshman Whitman representative, ran against Phil Porter, a freshman College of Arts and Sciences representative and former Student Life Committee chair, for the position of recorder. Evans beat out Porter on the second round of ballots.

Evans said he’s eager to get more involved in SA and sees the recorder position as a great way to do that. He said he has talked to previous recorders about the position and also read through past SA meeting minutes to see how he could improve.

“I learned that it’s not only about taking the minutes of the assembly but it’s also about the overall story of SA,” Evans said.

The last election of the night was for the position of parliamentarian. Stephen Thomas, a junior L.C. Smith College of Engineering representative, was the only nominee and was elected by the assembly. He previously worked with Jones on the changes to the SA constitution last semester.

The assembly also voted to confirm all five of the nominations Gresely made for his cabinet.

The confirmed cabinet members are as follows:
-Kyle Coleman was confirmed as chief of staff
-Anna Giles was confirmed as director of communication
-Federico Vicente was confirmed as director of academic affairs
-Sawyer Cresap was confirmed as director of student engagement
-Aysha Seedat was confirmed as director of student life

Of the five members, three have previous experience in SA. Coleman is a former finance board member who also ran for president in 2012. Vicente is a former vice chair of the academic affairs committee and Cresap is a former vice chair of the student engagement committee.

In choosing the cabinet, Gresely said that Vice President Lopez and he assessed potential nominees both on how they would be able to serve on an executive level in the cabinet and on how they would be able to serve the student body as a whole.

“We felt that these individuals had both those traits,” he said. “I really think that this group of cabinet members really have a great potential to do great things because the haven’t just been focused on what SA does but they’ve also been focused on other organizations and I think they’re really going to try to reconnect [SA] with campus.”

Additionally, Gresely was sworn in as president and Daniela Lopez was sworn in as vice president. Gresely and Lopez are the first president and vice president to be elected together. Because of changes to SA codes last fall, Gresely and Lopez will hold these positions for three semesters. Comptroller Patrick Douglas and the assembly representatives also took their oaths of office.

Additional business discussed:
• Brittany Moore, a junior S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications major, was introduced as Gresely’s nominee for director of technology. Her nomination will be voted on at the next cabinet meeting.
• Eight representatives were elected to the Board of Administrative Operations. This board approves all the bills that come before the assembly.

Published on January 14, 2014 at 3:12 am

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta