After two days of voting, Brian Bidadi '06 was elected president of the Undergraduate Council of Students, UCS officials announced early Wednesday. Swathi Bojedla '07 was elected chair of the Undergraduate Finance Board in elections that outgoing UCS president Joel Payne '05 called "really smooth and really clean."
Bidadi's platform focused on increasing communication between UCS and the student body. He advocated regular student polling and dorm visits to enhance face-to-face interaction. He also said he would increase UCS involvement with class events by using UCS resources to advertise events and encouraging UCS members to attend.
His platform also covered housing issues. He said he supported improvements to the housing lottery and regional card access that would give students access to neighboring dorms.
Bidadi, who also ran for president in a four-candidate field last year, said that he will stay at Brown this summer and hopes to "get things ready to go so next year we won't just be meeting each other."
"UCS next year is going to listen to student concerns, implement solutions to solve (students') problems, and follow through on these solutions," Bidadi said. He said he wants the changes to be "concrete and noticeable."
Bidadi, currently the UCS Admission and Student Services Committee chair, defeated Ben Creo '07, the UCS Campus Life Committee chair, by 173 votes. Creo, who ran on a platform of better communications, envisioned a "BrownTicker," which would continuously display campus news, events, deadlines and announcements to Web sites commonly visited by students. He also advocated changes to the advising program and free and confidential testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
"There's a lot of work that needs to be done," Creo said. "I definitely plan on being involved still." He said that campaigning helped raise his awareness of issues on campus, and he hopes to return to the council by running for a position as a representative in the fall.
In her campaign for UFB chair, Bojedla called for open and public UFB financial records to increase accountability and ensure consistent decisions. She said she would also create a clear UFB code of operations that would help students understand how UFB allocates funds.
Bojedla differed from her opponent, Richard Soto '06, on whether UFB deliberations should be open to the public. Bojedla said open deliberations would make UFB too political, but Soto argued that it would give students a better idea about how UFB decides to approve or reject proposals.
"It's going to be a great year," Bojedla said. "I know the board will do a great job."
Though happy about the outcome, Bojedla said she wished "there was a way (Soto) could be on the board still." Though UCS will fill many vacant positions in internal elections in the fall, Soto would have to be appointed to UFB from another group or elected by UCS to fill a UFB vacancy in order to be on the board for another year.
Many candidates thanked the UCS Elections Board for this year's smooth election.
The board made changes to campaign finance and e-mail rules this year. Last year, candidates' budgets were limited by flexible-value "points" that could correspond to posters, buttons or other campaign materials. This year, the cash value of the points used was limited to $40, to ensure that "more money didn't have an advantage," said Divya Kumaraiah '07, a member of the Elections Board.
Kumaraiah said that this year the board also "opened up the e-mail floodgates," allowing candidates to use e-mail in their campaigns.
Bidadi and Creo were both pleased with the smooth elections process. "It never got messy at any time. ... No one ran a dirty campaign," Creo said.
Bidadi said this year's elections ran more smoothly than he has previously seen during his time at Brown.
The announcement of the results concluded what was a grueling election for the candidates. Creo said he was campaigning Tuesday afternoon and evening, before the online polls on WebCT closed at 10 p.m.
The campaigning earned Creo at least one student's vote. "Creo came around the Ratty and that was huge, because when I actually went online, I knew him and it put a name to the face," said Leigh Martin '06, who added that she felt like she was guessing on the other elections, in which she did not meet candidates.
But many students told The Herald they were confused by the various UCS positions or simply not interested in the election.
"I voted, but something that I wish that I had seen ... (was) a description of the UCS positions themselves," said Matt Redovan '06. "The main thing is that there's confusion of what UCS does at Brown. And I think that might be a reason voter turnout is low and (the number of candidates) is low," he added.
On the WebCT polls, 1,866 students voted, although not all voters cast a ballot in every race and many opted for write-in candidates. In the 2004 elections, 2,823 votes were cast.
In contested races, Deanna Chaukos '08 was elected Campus Life Committee chair over Halley Wuertz '08, and Zac Townsend '08, a Herald copy editor, was elected Admission and Student Services Committee chair, defeating Anya Rasulova '08.
Andrew Dewitt '06 ran unopposed for UFB vice chair. Dobbs Hogoboom '08, Phil Wood '07, Danielle Hamilton '07, Katherine Cummings '06 and Thomas Kim '08 were chosen from a field of 11 as UFB representatives. Only Hamilton and Dewitt currently serve as UFB representatives.
Winning unopposed races, Sarah Saxton-Frump '07 will become UCS vice president, Will Cunningham '07 will become UCS treasurer, Cash McCracken '08 will chair the Student Activities Committee and Nick Monu '06 will be Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee chair.
The new UCS representatives for the Class of 2006 are Jonathan Margolick '06 and Doug Faron '06. The 2007 representatives are Kate Brandt '07, Tristan Freeman '07 and Aerin Lim '07. The 2008 representatives are Roxanne Horesh '08, Herald Staff Writer Jonathan Sidhu '08 and Stefan Lallinger '08. Each class has five representative positions on UCS, so seven positions will be open in internal elections in the fall in addition to the five 2009 representatives that first-years will elect.
