The Class of 2006 announced the 20 members of its Senior Executive Committee on Friday after a number of problems with the voting process. The senior class was forced to vote three times due to technical problems with the online voting system.
The SEC was originally set to be announced last Wednesday, but due to difficulties with the election-facilitating website The Basement, seniors were asked to vote repeatedly, delaying results until Friday.
The SEC will lead the class from graduation through the next five years until the first Class of 2006 reunion in 2011. Responsibilities include preparing for Class Day and Commencement, keeping the class connected to the College and each other after graduation, and planning their five-year reunion.
The first 12 members of the SEC were selected by popular vote, while the remaining eight were chosen by a group of administrators comprised of 2006 Class Dean Teoby Gomez, Assistant Director of Young Alumni and Student Programs Rex Morey '99 and Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy.
Administrative influence in the process was adopted in 2000 in order to allow for greater diversity in the group.
"The Class of 2000 asked the dean to revise the process to ensure diversity of representation on the committee," Morey said. "It was a student-initiated change."
The 66 seniors who applied answered three brief questions detailing their interest in the SEC, their talents and skills and their campus involvement. The number of interested seniors has seen about a 50 percent increase from recent memory, according to Morey.
"We had a difficult time with the whole process because there were so many good applicants," Morey said.
Morey also declined to comment on the cause of the problems with voting.
Some students who were not elected to the SEC said they were disappointed with the way in which the process ran.
"Not only is close to half of the SEC appointed by deans, rather than elected by seniors, but the opacity of the voting and re-voting makes it clear that the administration has something to hide," SEC candidate Michael Ellis '06 said. "The results of the election weren't even published. The notion that the SEC is a democratically-elected organization is a farce."
The committee's first duties will be to elect officers among themselves. It will then select a faculty speaker, an orator and historians for Class Day and class marshals and flag bearers for Commencement.
Gomez is the advisor of the SEC until graduation, at which point Morey will provide the support for the committee for the next five years.
The 2006 Senior Executive Committee members are Sarah Ayres, Anthony Bramante, Echo Brown, Elkin Cabas, Marie Choi, Adamah Cole, Michael Guzman, Taica Hsu, Heidi Immesberger, Kathryn Jaxheimer, Christina Jimenez, Jennifer Krimm, Russell Lane, Kathleen McManus, Yamini Rao, Kwabena Safo-Agyekum, Fariha Shafi, Ben Schwartz, Ben Waters and Edythe Wilson.
The committee and the class officers expressed confidence and enthusiasm for the SEC's work. "They are essentially our link to Dartmouth for the next five years," 2006 class vice president Samuel Jackson '06 said. "I think it is a great group of kids from a lot of different places on campus and different social groups and interests. They are really very representative of Dartmouth as a whole."
"I think it is really important for us to be connected over the next five years, especially since people will be spread out," Jaxheimer said. "It's nice to have an organization dedicated to keeping us connected."
