The new Student Assembly administration ran into its first glitch Tuesday night when the General Assembly declined to confirm the Dartmouth Chapter of the Ivy Council's nominee for head delegate, Frank Glaser '08.
At the Assembly's second meeting under the leadership of newly-elected Student Body President Noah Riner '06, the 24 voting members present debated Glaser's confirmation behind closed doors before rejecting his bid by an undisclosed margin.
In the last two years, two committee chair nominees have lost their confirmation bids.
The Dartmouth Chapter of the Ivy Council, the group that sends delegates to bi-annual conferences of Ivy League student government representatives, became an Assembly committee during Winter term.
"The decision power is in the hands of the Assembly and I stand by the Assembly's decisions," Riner said.
Unlike the Assembly's seven other committees, whose chairs are nominated by the student body president, DIVC was allowed to elect its own candidate for committee chair, subject to General Assembly confirmation.
The issue of whether the president would nominate a head delegate or the committee would put its own selection up for a vote was only resolved a few weeks ago after Riner and Assembly Vice President Jeffrey Coleman '08 reviewed Assembly rules.
Glaser said Riner and Coleman warned him a week before the confirmation vote that he might not be confirmed.
"They wanted me to know in advance that there was a possibility of me not getting confirmed and that they didn't want me to be too surprised or something," Glaser said.
Glaser was elected within the Ivy Council several weeks ago and attended an Ivy Council steering meeting in New York City on May 9 as Dartmouth's new head delegate without having been confirmed by the rest of the Assembly.
"The person who will be head delegate will not have had the benefit of attending that or expressing their opinions," Glaser said. "I feel like the reason I was picked was because I was suited to move Ivy Council in the right direction and challenge the status quo, and I'm not so confident that whoever else is picked will necessarily be able to do that."
The General Assembly confirmed Riner's nominees for the seven other committees without incident at last week's meeting.
Bringing in students from outside the Assembly to head up some of its committees was a goal both Riner and Coleman kept in mind as they conducted interviews for committee chairs, they said. A balance between men and women in the Assembly's executives, as well as more inclusion for Greek students, was also a priority, according to Coleman, who said the Assembly is in need of new perspective.
Riner said he was pleased with the new crop of Assembly execs.
"I think that we've been able to bring in a lot of new people this year who haven't been involved with SA in the past, and so we have the experience along with a lot of visionary leaders coming on board."
