New NEC chair talks future goals for student government

The Nominations & Elections Committee held internal elections earlier this month to determine the next executive board. College junior Frank Colleluori was elected as the NEC’s new chair, replacing Engineering and Wharton senior Alec Miller.

The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with Colleluori to discuss his goals for improving the institution in the next year.

The Daily Pennsylvanian: The NEC has basically the same job each year, running elections and nominating people when spots go unfilled. How will you differentiate your chairmanship from ones in the past?

Frank Colleluori: Something that the NEC has done really well for a long time has been perfecting its processes: elections, nominations and educating the student body and government on what student government is doing.

What the NEC has to do now is incorporate greater swaths of the student body into what student government is doing. That includes racial minorities as well as intellectual minorities [such as Engineering and Nursing students] and things like that.

DP: Student government elections have not been extremely competitive in the past with College and Wharton junior Abe Sutton running unopposed for Undergraduate Assembly president. What will you do to make elections more competitive in the future?

FC: We really need to ramp up our publicity in those [underrepresented] communities to make sure they’re aware of the opportunities available to them and that they’re aware they can accomplish their goals through student government.

Too often, student government seems like an insular body, only for a certain group of people. But much more can be accomplished the more we incorporate people.

DP: How do you plan to improve voter turnout?

FC: Part of that is going to be getting more people to run, since more contested elections means more people vote. Greater competition just excites the student body. But voter turnout isn’t too much of a concern right now — we’re somewhere in the middle of the Ivy League in terms of turnout. What’s more important is making voters more educated.

DP: How does the turnover work in the NEC? Is there any danger in not filling important roles?

FC: I think it’s a very well-staffed body. There’s a really good turnover each year with institutional knowledge, and we don’t lose it through the years. We had really contested elections because people are always excited to be on executive board. It really changes the way you impact the organization and the student body.

DP: What was your progression through the body?

FC: I actually have a fairly unique progression because I’ve been on exec every year since sophomore year. I was first a general body member, then vice chair for nominations, then vice chair for elections and now chair. That’s convenient because I think where we need the most effort is education [of the student body]. Since I have a background in both nominations and elections, we won’t need to put as much effort into them as in years when the chair hadn’t had both spots. So we can move more with education this year.

DP: What are the big education initiatives?

FC: For me, my big goal is really making Penn’s student government more inclusive, which ties into our vice chair for education’s plans going forward. I know [College sophomore Kanisha Parthasarathy is] interested in making State of the School bigger and better to build connections across the university, outside of student government. There’s also a big push to improve our debates to increase the quality and make this information available to a larger array of students, making them better voters.

DP: Final words?

FC: I’m really excited to work with the body and Penn Student Government in general. I’m really excited that we’ll be able to reinvigorate some of the populations that might have lost interest and include new ones at the same time.

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