The deans of Dartmouth's Class of 2008 announced the results of the election for the Senior Executive Committee, the primary governing body for the class following graduation, on Tuesday. More than 500 seniors voted to elect 12 members to the SEC out of a pool of 66 candidates. The elected SEC officials will appoint eight additional members on Monday.
The elected members of the SEC, in order of their vote totals, are Tess Reeder '08, Jacqueline Loeb '08, Jamal Brown '08, Yasmin Mandviwala '08, Jamie Bergeson-Bradshaw '08, Johnathan Ball '08, Lauren Bennett '08, Travis Green '08, Chad Detloff '08, Annie Greengard '08, Zack Chestnut '08 and Mike Heslin '08.
The SEC's purpose is to maintain connections between the members of the class and between the class and the College, according to the Office of Alumni Relations website. SEC is responsible for organizing Commencement events, the celebratory Class Day before graduation and the five-year class reunion.
"I ran for SEC to unite my class and see my fellow 08s graduate with the same energy as they had when we matriculated four years ago," Brown said.
The committee also organizes "mini-reunions," handles the class newsletters, sends informative class-wide e-mails and encourages alumni donations to the College, according to John Valdez '07, the SEC secretary for the Class of 2007.
In order to fulfill the committee's responsibilities, SEC members must effectively communicate with a wide variety of seniors. This year's newly elected members are well suited to face this challenge, Mandviwala said.
"I am actually positively surprised about how diverse [this year's SEC] is," Mandviwala said. "People who are on it are from different areas of campus life, which is good because we will be able to reach out to everyone."
The elected members include Senior Class Council and Student Assembly officers, leaders of campus political organizations, varsity athletes and members of campus artistic groups.
Anne Kasitaza '08, who received the seventeenth highest vote total, said that she feels the SEC election tends to favor members of Greek organizations. Eleven of the 12 elected members are affiliated with campus Greek system.
"Personally, I would like to see more non-affiliated students elected," she said.
Other members of the Class of 2008 also expressed concern that the recent SEC elections relied more on the popularity of the candidates than on their qualifications for office. According to Loeb, the elected seniors are those who know the most members of the class.
"There's certainly a lot of qualified people that are, for some reason, not well known on campus" she said. "They have relatively low chances of getting elected."
Andrew Klein '08 said that every election is, in part, a "popularity contest." Klein was 14 votes shy of a position on the committee.
"We must rely on those who self-select themselves onto the ballot and we must trust that they are sincere in their words and goals," he said.
The remaining eight members of the SEC will be appointed by the 12 elected officials by a process implemented last year.
In earlier years, the eight additional members were appointed by the assistant dean of the College, the assistant director of young alumni relations and student programs and the director of student activities. This election method has been changed in response to concerns that the administrators who appointed the remaining SEC members did not know the candidates as well as the elected SEC members did.
In this year's process, the elected representatives will be looking to choose the "most excited and dedicated" candidates who will further diversify the SEC body, Mandviwala said.
Brown also expressed a desire to make the committee more diverse.
"Many communities [are] not represented on the current committe and I hope we can select 8 new members to give voice to those underrepresented groups," Brown said. "The SEC should focus on drawing respresentatives from the international, Native, Asian and Asian -American, and Latino communities, and especially students who maintain a strong relationship with administration."
Some candidates who were not elected may feel relieved to escape the burden of the responsibilities associated with SEC, Klein said.
"I want this responsibility," he said. "I am hopeful that I shall be chosen as part of the team, and I would add a reliable creativity to the group."
