University of Wisconsin elections brought new faces to student government, as council members pledged to change policies affecting the student body and provide a student voice to governance on campus.
Associated Students of Madison Student Council seats allotted for the College of Letters and Science had the biggest returns of the night, with each of the 12 winners receiving from 600 to more than 1,000 votes.
Current members Maria Giannopoulos, Andrew Bulovsky, Sarah Neibart and Nikolas Magallon all retained their seats on the council for next year. Current Chief of Staff David Gardner was also voted in.
The Graduate School seats and College of Engineering seats had the next-biggest vote getters, with the top recipient for the Graduate School receiving nearly 500 votes and top Engineering candidate receiving more than 300 votes.
UW senior Chris Spears, who won the Student Council seat for the College of Education by a total of nine votes, said he was glad to win such a close race and is looking forward to the upcoming Student Council session.
“The Student Council needed new people, new blood, new ideas [and] diversity as well,” Spears said. “It needed a voice to represent the student body in a better way than it was being represented this year.”
Current Student Services Finance committee Chair Sarah Neibart, who will stay on as a committee member, said she was excited to return as a council member for the next session.
Neibart added with the recent decisions from Interim Chancellor David Ward, she has seen an increased interest on the finance committee about non-allocable student funds, which she hopes to carry in to her work on Student Council meetings next year.
“Being involved in Student Council when I was a freshman and SSFC committee Chair, I’ve had both student perspectives and I’m really excited to get what I’ve learned and … make a change and make ASM a more effective ASM,” Neibart said.
UW junior Justin Bloesch, who previously was on the SSFC committee but stepped down for the spring semester to study abroad, ran again but lost the seat to UW sophomore and SSFC newcomer Ian Malmstadt by 48 votes.
BOOP, a slate organized to coordinate a group effort to win election onto ASM, also won a total of nine seats out of 24 for which their candidates campaigned.
BOOP candidate Maxwell Love, who won one of 12 of the Student Council seats, said while it is unfortunate not everybody was successful in their campaigns, he felt the group was effectively represented.
“I feel like BOOP campaigned on things that really meant things to students,” Love said. “Obviously there are a lot of issues that affect students, but I feel like the group that got elected from BOOP will be able to represent the specific interests that got them elected.”
Love added candidates who did not win their seats will still be involved in the student government by getting involved on committees and other groups on campus.
Senior class officers were also announced, with Elizabeth Pike winning the position of President with 1,087 votes over BOOP-endorsed Isaac Solano and Myranda Tanck winning the vice presidency. The positions of secretary and treasurer went to write-in candidates.
ASM Spring 2012 Election Results[2]
