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College junior Matt Amalfitano won the UA presidency with 1,822 votes. His opponent, College junior Grant Dubler, received 992 votes.

Just hours after College junior Matt Amalfitano was elected the Undergraduate Assembly’s first-ever president Sunday, he sat down to talk with The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Among a number of subjects, Amalfitano discussed building a “closer” Penn, increasing athletic game attendance and combating skepticism about the voting referendum.

The Daily Pennsylvanian: What are your goals for the next year?

Matt Amalfitano: In my campaign, I talked a lot about building one Penn, and I think that while it sounds like an incredible lofty goal to bring Penn together as one, there are a lot of different things we can do — small, very tangible things — that when partnering with the UA, we can absolutely achieve.

A couple of examples are building common spaces, making sure there are areas on campus where people can congregate. … Things like revamping the basement of 1920 Commons and repairing the first floor of Skirkanich Hall for students can absolutely happen next year.

Additionally, I hope to promote athletic turnout. We need to partner with the 10 percent of the student body who are student athletes and incorporate them into the Penn community.

Another goal is to revamp the Cultural Diversity in the U.S. [a College requirement or foundational approach] in order to ensure that there is an ample selection of courses so that students can get a wide breadth of intercultural exposure.

DP: Why did you decide to run?

MA: I think there’s a difference between why someone would make a good president and why someone should be president.

I think the reasons why I would be a good president are my experiences — outside the UA, on the UA and involved in the multitude of different experiences on campus, like being an RA, a member of One-in-Four, or a member of a fraternity.

The reason why someone should be president is because of vision. The UA president must bring campus together because we have a really decentralized school.

DP: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the UA?

MA: I think that there is a lot of skepticism about how the referendum changes things. Now the UA leader is popularly elected, and I think there was a lot of skepticism about if this person would represent anything different and if it would change the system at all.

I want to show that this new position is not only a face, but a listener. And this listener must hear the ideas of every student.

DP: What would you like to see the UA do differently?

MA: It seems to me that student government represents a niche on campus. There are people that are involved in student government, and there are people that are not.

The people who are not involved are the ones who don’t really vote, don’t really know the candidates, and I think this referendum and election addressed that problem.

I hope that everyone can be involved in UA decision-making; we should no longer integrate with student groups, we should partner with them. We need to lobby administration to allow students to get what they want.

DP: How has the UA progressed from when you first joined the board?

MA: I think that we’ve progressed a heck of a lot. First of all, we integrate student groups much more than ever before. We make sure that they can take part in actual decision making at committee meetings. These partnerships seem like no-brainers, but they never really happened before I was on the UA. We now make students a priority.

We’ve also seen a birth of services. For example, when I started, airport shuttles were small, but now the system is so big that students rely on them.

DP: How do you plan on working with your vice president, Mark Pan?

MA: I really don’t know any other students on this campus who have the institutional knowledge and knowledge of student groups like Mark does.

You want to know that your congressman is active in the community — Mark is directly involved and engaged with things that are going on on the ground level.

DP: Do you prefer boxers or briefs?

MA: Absolutely boxers — specifically the ones my mom buys for me.

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