Candidates will be allowed to enter the race early in Spring term, although officials have not yet scheduled dates for the entry deadline or the election, according to Elections Planning and Advisory Committee Chair David Imamura '10.
The committee has not yet decided on any new election regulations but will likely make changes to the electoral process, Imamura said.
"Elections should be as fair and as open as possible and we will modify regulations to make sure that is the case," he said.
This year's race will be unique in that it will require candidates to consider fiscal issues alongside any policy ideas they have, Granit told The Dartmouth.
"It will be important that candidates have an understanding of the restraints and potential presented by [the College's] budget issues," she said.
Candidates for president and vice president should take action to combat the image of irrelevancy that most students have of Student Assembly, according to Aiono and Hix.
"I think that [the] Assembly needs to work on increasing transparency, accessibility and student-friendliness," Aiono said in an e-mail to the Dartmouth.
The Assembly has recently experienced a decline in membership and must reinvigorate student interest, Hix told The Dartmouth.
Changes to the Assembly's constitution, ratified Feb. 24, will affect any candidate elected, according to Hix, who currently serves as Assembly spokesman. These changes include allowing new Assembly members to elect officers and reducing the time between candidates' election and taking office, he said.
Potential presidential candidates Falloon, Olagoke and Tanner, and potential vice presidential candidates Aiono and Hix, have all been involved with the Assembly since they were elected as cluster representatives in their freshman years, they told The Dartmouth. The five are also all admissions tour guides, they said.
Falloon has served as student services chair in the Assembly since her sophomore Spring, she said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. As student services chair, she has coordinated with the Office of Residential Life on student housing options, Dartmouth Dining Services on sustainable dining options and Computing Services over decisions between Blitzmail and other e-mail providers, she said.
Granit became a voting member of the Assembly during the Fall term, she said. This term, she became chair of the Student Budget Advisory Committee, a committee that interfaces between students and the administration regarding budget cuts, she said.
Granit said her campaign platform will focus primarily on better integrating the College's diverse advising programs, the facilitation of interdisciplinary studies, increased environmental sustainability for Dartmouth and continuing discussions about sexual assault and violence on campus.
Both Falloon and Olagoke are currently conducting research as Presidential Scholars, they said.
Olagoke currently serves as Student Life Chair, a position he also held his sophomore Winter term, he said in an e-mail to the Dartmouth. He served as Assembly Secretary his sophomore Fall term and Fieldstock Chair his sophomore Summer term, he said. Olagoke is also an admissions intern, he said.
Tanner has been re-elected as a class representative each year since his freshman year, when he served as the representative of the River residential cluster, he wrote in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. Tanner is the Assembly's historian and serves on both the Committee on Standards and the Dean of the College's Social Event Management Procedures student advisory board, he said.
Aiono previously served on the Assembly's Executive Board as presidential assistant and was involved in the institution of the orientation and initiation program for newly-elected freshman cluster representatives, he said. Aiono is also a member of the 2011 Class Council and of the Judicial Affairs Committee on Standards, he said.
Hix has been involved with several committees, including his work as chair of student services during Fall term 2009, he said.
Zapata, who said in an e-mail she plans to make a decision about running for vice president by Tuesday, is president of La Alianza Latina.
"What is pushing me to run right now is the hope to one day have a Dartmouth community that is composed of overlapping communities that are all proud to be part of a similarly exciting Dartmouth experience," she said in the e-mail.
