Freshman class elects new leaders

Anxious chatter filled Houston Hall’s Golkin Room on Friday as candidates eagerly awaited the results of the freshman Undergraduate Assembly and Class Board elections.

For the first time in several years, no accusations of election violations were filed, allowing the Nominations and Elections Committee to forgo any hearings and announce the results Friday evening.

For the Undergraduate Assembly, College freshman Jake Shuster received the most votes — a total of 546. As the top vote-getter, Shuster will represent the UA on the University Council.

The other eight UA seats available to freshmen were won by College freshmen Chris Cruz, Zeke Sexauer, MJ Gitter, Alex Amaniel, Michael Levenstein and Lulu Xiong and Wharton freshmen Kasia Klasa and Hunter Horsley.

College freshman Jonathon Youshaei was elected the Class of 2013 president. Gitter was elected vice president.

“[I’m] on cloud nine,” Youshaei said after the results had been announced.

The other class board positions will be filled by Klasa, Shuster, Sexauer, College freshmen Ben Watkins and Josh Dembowitz, Engineering freshman AJ Chatterjee, Nursing freshman Spencer Stubbs and Wharton freshman Clayton Knocke.

The voter turnout, 58.1 percent of freshmen, was a drop from last year’s 62.3-percent turnout.

Wharton senior Patricia Liu, NEC vice chairwoman for elections, suggested that the switch in voting venue from Penn InTouch to pennstudgov.com as a possible reason for the decrease in voter turnout.

She added that the NEC can learn from the successes of this year, as well as the failures, to increase future voter turnout.

Still, Liu said she was very happy with the effort of all the candidates to abide by the rules and maintain “a clean election.”

Similarly, Class of 2010 President and Wharton senior Arthur Gardner Smith said he was impressed by the fact that no violations were filed by any candidates, unlike in recent years.

He added that the newly elected Class of 2013 Board has “great camaraderie.”

Liu and other student government leaders also noted the positive aspects of this year’s campaign.

“It’s the first year I’ve really seen substantive campaigning,” Liu said.

College junior and UA chairman Alec Webley was also impressed by the campaigning this year, pointing specifically to the candidates’ realistic promises and hard efforts.

Webley added that he and the UA are looking forward to “giving them the tools they need to make these promises a reality.”

He also mentioned other ways of getting involved in student government for those not elected to the UA or Class Board.

Webley said anyone can join the UA as an associate member, meaning they can work on projects and initiatives, but not vote on resolutions. Webley made his start in the UA as an associate member.

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