Frode Eilertsen '99, Ben Hill '98 and Scott Jacobs '99 have declared their candidacies for president of the Student Assembly for the 1997-98 academic year, while no one is officially on the ballot for Assembly vice president, according to the Election Advisory Committee.
In next month's elections, scheduled for April 15 and 16, students will also elect members of the Committee on Standards and the Green Key Society -- as well as at-large Assembly representatives and class officers from the classes of 1998, 1999 and 2000.
Eilertsen, an engineering major, hails from Norway and has served as president of his class for the past two years. In addition, this year he has served on the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee of the Assembly.
He said he wants to make the Assembly more representative of students and to "get more information out to students about what's going on." Eilertsen said he also wants the student body to know more about who the College's administration is and what they do.
In particular, he said he wants students to have more input on the tenure process and the Dartalk telephone setup.
Hill said he has always been interested in politics and has dreamed of one day becoming President of the United States. He worked on student governments in high school and was elected to the Student Assembly from the class council during his freshman year.
Following a shakeup in the Assembly during Hill's freshman year -- where President Danielle Moore '95 resigned and the vice president and treasurer ascended to higher positions in the organization -- Hill served as Assembly treasurer in the Winter term and secretary in the spring. In 1996, he served as Summer-term President of the Assembly.
He said one of his main goals is to improve the quality of services at Dick's House. He said he wants to maintain the Greek system, but also to offer more social options for students who are not comfortable with it.
Hill said he wants to open the Assembly up to the student body to better fulfill its the aims of its new constitution, which set up the Assembly to be a voice for all students.
Jacobs has worked on both his class council and the Assembly in his two years at the College. He served as co-chair for family weekend and also co-chaired the Student Life committee for his class council.
He said he wants to empower the student voice through the Assembly to fill the "lack of a strong forum for student opinion."
The Assembly cannot talk to the administration until it has talked to the student body and represents them, Jacobs said. It is a challenge for the Assembly to be able to directly represent students that members have never met.
Jacobs said he wants to increase the number of official ties between the College and the Assembly. By way of comparison, Jacobs said, the student government at Harvard University has a dean of students present at every meeting, and the Cornell University president signs or vetoes every resolution from the student government there.
Collis Student Center Director Mark Hoffman, who chairs the EAC, said the election committee will decide this week whether to allow a particular student to appear on the ballot for vice president.
Dave Altman '99, who petitioned to be a candidate, is currently not listed on the ballot due to a technicality.
If his name is not placed on the ballot, the vice presidential slate will be blank and the next Assembly vice president will be elected as a write-in candidate.
Altman said he plans to run for vice president regardless of whether his name is on the list of candidates.
He has worked for the past term-and-a-half on the Assembly's membership and internal affairs committee -- which is chaired by the Assembly vice president -- and Altman said he has gained a knowledge of the vice president's role through that work.
"I feel like the lines of communication have been broken and I want to fix that," Altman said.
He said he wants Assembly representatives from every class to be directly linked to certain members of their class in the same way that freshman Assembly members represent a specific portion of the freshman class.
Despite the more than 70 candidates for Green Key society, there are currently only three total candidates listed on the ballot for the Assembly's top two positions.
"I was pretty shocked by the low turnout," Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 said. "I would definitely anticipate seeing some serious write-in candidates."
