With the elections eight days away and the Green Key candidate forum tomorrow night, Student Assembly presidential and vice presidential candidates are busy discussing the ideas and issues with their fellow students.
The presidential campaigns are emphasizing campus diversity and community while the vice presidential candidates are discussing more tangible issues.
The candidates for Assembly president are Sarah Cho '97, Jon Heavey '97, Unai Montes-Irueste '98, Scott Rowekamp '97, Steve Salemi '97 and Jeremy Segal '97.
Joan Ai '98, Bill Kartalopoulos '97 and Chris Swift '98 are running for vice president. Meredith Epstein '97 is running for Assembly vice president as a write-in candidate.
Diversity and community are issues the presidential candidates are addressing from different angles.
According to Cho's platform, her campaign stresses her involvement in two key features of Dartmouth life -- the Greek system and minority organizations. Cho is a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and the former president of the Dartmouth Asian Organization.
Cho's campaign has recently undergone a metamorphosis. Cho and Swift, who announced they were running for office together last term, have broken their ties and are now running individually, Cho said. "I still think [Swift] will be an awesome vice president," Cho added.
Heavey's goals are more specific than Cho's. He said he wants to put together a randomized dinner for all Dartmouth students to facilitate interaction between members of different campus groups.
Heavey is working with Dean of First-Year Students Peter Goldsmith to implement his idea for incoming freshmen in the fall.
Like the other candidates, Montes-Irueste is presenting his platform to and seeking input from campus groups
"I am attempting to establish that I have worked on "hot" campaign issues since my freshman fall," he said. "Issues such as diversity are not foreign to me; neither is the experience to implement them."
Rowekamp said he is speaking to different campus groups about his campaign platform. He said he will speak to members of the Conservative Union at Dartmouth and writers for the Beacon tonight. He will also speak to the Freshman Council on Wednesday.
Rowekamp is running with Ai -- an alliance he said they formed last term. "We both have the same basic vision for the Assembly," he said. "We think it should be mostly student-service oriented."
Salemi has also focused his campaign on community. He said his overall vision is that "the Dartmouth experience comes and goes very quickly" and he would like to "help rebuild the Dartmouth community with safeguards to prevent recent events from occurring again while we are here."
He said he thinks the Assembly is important in this process as it is the only organization "that truly represents the Dartmouth community."
Campaigns are gearing up on the vice presidential front as well.
Ai said she wants more people to know what the Assembly is doing by putting disseminating information over the computer to reduce the amount of "wasteful paper mailings."
Kartalopoulos said he wants to "distinguish himself from the other vice presidential candidates and show the campus that none other is as qualified for the job."
He said the role of Assembly president and vice president are different.
"It is the president's job to have a vision and lead the community while the vice president keeps the Assembly moving and must know the constitution in and out," he said.
Swift said he thinks this week of campaigning show students "who is truly committed and who will follow through" with the ideas they present.
He said his plans for the week are to "get out there and talk to students," to tell them about his priorities and to hear what they have to say.
The Green Key Society will sponsor a candidate forum in Collis Common Ground tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Each candidate will be allowed to speak for three minutes, and at the forum's conclusion, the candidates will field questions from the audience.
Assembly President Jim Rich '96 said the Assembly meeting, usually at 8 p.m., has been changed to 8:30 p.m. to accommodate members who are running for office.
Assembly presidential candidate Jeremy Segal could not be reached for comment.
