Student Body Vice President Noah Riner '06 led a low-key Student Assembly meeting Tuesday night, one that stood in sharp contrast to the tightly-organized meeting -- led by President-Elect Julia Hildreth '05 and Vice President-Elect Todd Rabkin Golden '06 -- that followed.
Hildreth expressed pleasure with the nature of her meeting. "The turnout is huge; I'm psyched about that," Hildreth said to the group of students present at the meeting. Seated in a large circle, the group consisted of several new faces.
Voting members within the group elected Dax Tejera '07 as Assembly secretary and Chris Bertrand '07 as Assembly Treasurer. Tejera is also a member of The Dartmouth staff.
Jacques Hebert '07, Shaunak Mewada '06, Karan Danthi '07 and Diana Zhang '06 were elected to the Membership and Internal Affairs Committee, which is responsible for membership tracking, committee reviews and college committee appointments.
Lucinda Leung '06 was declared the new Assembly community service coordinator, a position that has not been filled in the recent past.
Other committee chairs confirmed at the meeting were: Russell Lane '06 for Academic Affairs in the winter and spring; Sebastian Restrapo '07 for Communications in the fall and winter; Jesse Brush '06 for Communications in the spring; Santiago Vallinas '07 for Diversity Affairs in the fall, winter and spring; Dave Hankins '05 for Student Life in the fall, winter and spring; Elisa Donnelly '07 for Student Organizations in the fall; Mats Lemberger '06 for Student Organizations in the winter and spring; Ben Zimmerman '07 for Student Services in the fall; and Kirsten Murray '07 for Student Services in the winter and Spring. Some chair positions remain unfilled.
Ben Zimmerman is also a member of The Dartmouth staff.
Hildreth unveiled some of her logistical plans for the upcoming year, including a new process of appointing committee chairs in which aspiring committee chairs would need to interview with Hildreth and Golden prior to appointment.
Hildreth also said that meetings next year will most likely be moved back to Collis 101 and that Lucas Nikkel '05 would serve as president's assistant.
Hildreth's first meeting at the helm consisted of committee reports summing up old matters of business, including updates on the campus bike program, the Kresge Gym expansion initiative and various academic issues.
A "revealing" of ten fluorescent painted bicycles, which will be available for convenient student use around campus, is slated to take place either by the end of the term or during the first week of summer term, according to Student Services Committee chair Diana Zhang.
Zhang said that she would meet with her committee members this Thursday to paint the bikes -- which the Assembly purchased from Walmart -- and place bumper stickers on them for tracking purposes.
"If we start with a smaller number and take care to track them, hopefully the program will meet more success," Zhang said of this year's plan as opposed to the defunct Big Green Bikes program.
Zhang announced that the committee would send out a campus-wide survey to determine what channel students would like dropped to enable the introduction of mtvU.
The Assembly also announced that it hit another roadblock in the Kresge Gym expansion initiative. Hildreth said that Collis Center was looking into expanding its TV room, which would displace the storage space in Collis to the room that the Assembly had secured as a satellite location for gym equipment.
However, Hildreth said that the Assembly would go forward with its planned purchase of gym equipment and proceed from there.
Academic Affairs Committee Chair Steve Koutsavlis '05 announced that Professor Samuel Stark of the French and Italian department would be the recipient of an Assembly grant to be used in conjunction with the French FSP.
