UGBC Campaigning Under Way

The UGBC presidential and vice presidential candidates kicked off campaign season Tuesday night by briefly introducing themselves and their platforms. Four pairs are entering the primaries and will be vying for student votes.

The teams are: Mike Joyce and Justin Portes, both A&S '12; Nick Domino, A&S '12 and Katrina Lutfy, CSON '12; Mike Kitlas and Jill Long, both A&S '12; and David Lalonde, A&S '12 and Ryan Tierney, CSOM '12.

In an opening remark, Michaela Mabida, UGBC president and CSOM '11, advised the student body. "Be aware of crap," she said. "You are all in a great position to challenge the candidates, who will need to motivate and lead over 100 people [as president and vice president]. It's important to look to the candidates' past, what they cared about before."

Mabida also said that she and Pat Raab, UGBC vice president and A&S '11, will not be endorsing anyone this campaign season.

Joyce, who is currently vice president of the UGBC Senate, and Portes, the special initiatives director within the UGBC's Cabinet, said their most important intiative will be student formation. "Student formation [is important to us], education of the whole person," Joyce said. "One aspect of this is peer mentoring, which will help younger [students] with getting involved and finding their place by finding older students who can help them find their way. This is the cornerstone of what we're trying to do ­– education of the whole person."

To accomplish this goal, Joyce said they hope to engage the entire campus. "We want to take a campus-wide approach to mentoring, and especially make it available to all students," he said. "Oftentimes there are students who have not gotten involved who could benefit from that kind of relationship."

Another issue Joyce and Portes discussed was the lack of space on campus. "We want to work with Hillside and the Rat to have those places stay open later and on weekends, as well," Portes said.

The pair would like to streamline the course registration process. "We want to have syllabi posted during registration period," Portes said. This will give students a better knowledge of what classes will entail, he said. "We also want to revamp the search engine so it includes a search by class type."

Their final platform point seeks to encourage collaboration. "We want to create a Student Leadership Caucus to unite student organizations," Joyce said.

Domino and Lutfy, whose slogan is "Think Big," are focusing on pushing through initiatives that are already under way. Their platform includes five main points, Domino said.

The first is to create a service endowment. "This will allow smaller service trips to get BC funding," he said. "The [Volunteer and Service Learning Center] is already centralizing this coming year."

Second, the pair hopes to reform Nights on the Heights (NOTH). "Nights on the Heights has a $527,000 budget," Domino said. He said they want to help NOTH organizers rethink how that money is spent. "We want to see some collaboration between BC to Boston and NOTH, and we hope to create a new program called BC in Boston because BC to Boston has proven to be an effective alternative programming source."

Domino said their third initiative is to secure a cafe in O'Neill Library and eventually in Bapst Library. Fourth is to encourage Student Organization Funding Committee (SOFC) reform, fifth is to push through an initiative called SpeakUP! On these last two topics, however, Domino did not go into detail.

Domino listed four words to describe his and Lutfy's campaign: accomplished, certified, innovative, and peers.

"Certified, because everything on our platform has been talked about with an administrator already," he said. "We're going to make it happen."

The ‘Peers' component has to do with he and Lutfy giving back, Domino said. "We won't take entire UGBC stipend of $6,000 per president and vice president," he said. "The extra money will be the first contribution to the service endowment, and 30 percent will go to the Doug Flutie Foundation for Autism."

Involved with the UGBC since freshman year, Kitlas and Long said they are focusing on formation, outreach, programming, and accessibility. "We've both been involved with UGBC since freshman year, we both did [the Mentoring Leadership Program]," Kitlas said. "We've coined ourselves UGBC nerds."

The pair, whose campaign slogan is "We are Building Community," also hope to unite student groups. "We want to create a Programming Caucus so we can find places to collaborate," Kitlas said. "We want to let people know that the UGBC is an organization you can go to."

"We hope to expand Unity Directorship," Long said. "[Using our] connection with AHANA faculty and the Director of ALC Awareness, we want to start a new program called Rethink Drink Week."

Like Domino and Lutfy, Kitlas and Long hope to work closely with NOTH. "We want to increase our bond with NOTH, and work on coordinating events before events."

On the topic of accessibility, Kitlas said they want to increase the transparency of the UGBC. "We want to increase the accessibility for people outside the organization," he said. "We'll hold office hours in the UGBC office, and we want to have regular meetings between the Cabinet, Senate, ALC, and GLC."

Long talked about how the two of them seek to enhance academic advising. "We want to hold an advisee seminar to educate students on how to ask the right questions," she said.

"Our role as president and vice president will be to act as conduits to the administration and be representatives for the student body," they said. "We'll be placing a suggestion box on the UGBC website to get student feedback."

Lalonde and Tierney were not present at the Tuesday night gathering. Ben Hall, a graduate assistant in the student programs office and head of the elections committee, confirmed them as the fourth candidate team. He said he did not have an answer as to why they waited so long to announce their intent to run.