After more than eight hours of meetings, the Student Assembly's nominations committee remains unable to agree whether it will grant membership to Grace Chionuma' 96, who was appointed summer Assembly president two days ago.
Chionum, appointed by President-elect Danielle Moore '95 and Vice President-elect Rukmini Sichitiu '95, must be a member of the Assembly to become its summer leader.
The nominations committee, which approves Assembly membership and is chaired by Sichitiu, narrowed a field of nine applicants for the position of at-large member to two, one being Chionuma.
The vacancy was created when Sichitiu was elected both vice president and at-large member of next year's Assembly.
Sichitiu said the nominations committee decided not to release the name of the second candidate.
There are four voting members on the committee: Brooke Brightly '95, Meredith Epstein '97, Nina Nho '97 and Sichitiu. Laura Bennett '96 is a member of the committee but is not on campus this term.
"The committee has not come to a decision and we are postponing our [decision] until next week," Sichitiu said.
Epstein said she believes the deadlock is the result of the differences between "what each person thinks the focus of the summer Assembly should be."
Sichitiu said the committee is divided because two members believe the summer Assembly should concentrate on tangible projects but the other two think it should work on policy-oriented issues.
Sichitiu said she and Moore ran on platforms promising results "beyond the course guide." Sichitiu said she hopes the committee members will remember why she was elected vice president.
In trying to fill the at-large vacancy, the nominations committee eliminated applicants who ran unsuccesfully for an at-large position in April.
"Those people were rejected by the student body and therefore we did not feel it was our place to go against the spirit of Dartmouth students," Sichitiu said.
Those who had never served as a committee chair in the Assembly and those who did not attend meetings were then eliminated. The committee then narrowed the remaining pool down to two candidates.
The committee will meet again on Wednesday to determine whom it will admit to the Assembly.
Sichitiu would not comment on what would happen if the committee could not decide at that time.
"I hope that [the committee members] will be able to make an informed decision," Sichitiu said.
