The Undergraduate Council of Students filled six of seven open positions through internal elections at its meeting Wednesday night.
Voting members of the body, including new members who had collected at least ten petition signatures from their peers prior to last night’s meeting, participated in the elections.The body chose Sam Caplan ’22 as UCS Historian, Vanessa Garcia ’20 as Secretary, Jason Carroll ’21 as Appointments Chair, Shelby Love ’22 as Parliamentarian, Chiaka Ibe ’21 as Alumni Liaison and Kathryn Stack ’19 as Undergraduate Finance Board Liaison.
Three candidates vied for the positions of secretary and UFB liaison, while two ran to be the alumni liaison. All other races were uncontested, and the position of webmaster, who is responsible for updating the UCS website, was not filled.
The Council also voted to appoint five at-large members to UFB to fill open slots. Twelve candidates ran for the available positions.
The elected representatives were Jeewon Shin ’21, Gianna DeVincenzo ’22, Fatoumata Kabba ’22, Vedraman Narayan ’21 and Peter Deegan ’21. UFB Chair Lisa Schold ’19 attended the general body meeting and asked questions to several candidates.
In the contested race for UCS secretary, Garcia highlighted reliability, competence and listening skills in her pitch to the general body. “You can count on me to be here, most times even ten minutes early because that’s how I like to do things,” she said.
To make her case for alumni liaison, Ibe discussed her experience as the UCS Chair of Alumni Relations in fall 2017 and Chief of Staff in spring 2018. According to Ibe, one project she has worked to develop through UCS is “one where we’re going to have all the alumni being able to directly donate to clubs,” she said, following precedents at schools like Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Stack ran for UFB liaison and cited her experience of three years on UCS and two years as the co-chair of the council’s elections board. She advocated incorporating “simple infographics” and advising student groups with “tips and tricks” for navigating the budgeting process, she said.
Candidates in uncontested races also gave short speeches and took questions from the general body.
The general body members cast their ballots through a blind hand raise for the contested UCS positions and a vote of confidence for the uncontested positions. The UFB members were elected through a ranked ballot.
UCS President Shanzé Tahir ’19 said the Community Accountability Focus Group, a recently formed body meant to address harm in the Brown community, will meet next Wednesday. Prospective members of the Student Activities Committee met briefly after the general body meeting concluded.
