All the votes for the 2009 Associated Student Government (ASG) election have been counted, and the candidates can now focus on studying…or sleeping.
"It gets exhausting after awhile," Vice President-elect Adam Harris said Tuesday night. "I'm probably going to be working on papers for class all night."
Senior Jonathan McNabb won the student body presidency with 71 percent of the vote, according to a tally by ASG student senate.
Harris will serve as the next student body vice president with Andrew Ferguson as vice president of student organizations. Both races were uncontested.
Junior Cassidy Pazyniak won the majority vote of 59 percent for vice president for campus activities.
ASG records show 4,115 students participated in this year's election by voting for at least one of the four candidate races on Blackboard.
"I think it went pretty well," Ferguson said. "The voter turnout was actually decent. It was not quite a third of the campus."
Harris said he thought the elections were successful, if not exhausting.
"The elections went well, it was definitely more of a marathon than in years past," Harris said.
He says that he and Ferguson have campaigned heavily for McNabb for several weeks.
"The elections were kind of anti-climactic for Andrew and me," Harris said. "We anticipated having opponents, and when no one ran against us, it was kind of all hands on deck for Jonathan."
Paul Struebing, McNabb's opponent in the presidential race, said McNabb ran a strong campaign.
"We didn't have as good of a campaign, and that's why he won," Struebing said. "Basically, he out-planned us on every step of the way. We were well behind until the second debate."
President-elect McNabb says he is excited to begin the transition to office, which will be completed in late April.
"I'm really fortunate," McNabb said. "I've had a lot of great people helping me out. A team of six or seven people have been working on the campaign for the past three months."
McNabb said he will work with current President Mike Scott during the transition of student government officials and the creation of the new cabinet, a group consisting of various secretarial positions elected by the student senate.
McNabb said both he and Harris hope to involve more individuals outside of the student government in the cabinet.
"We're going to do our best to get a lot of different people from across campus to run," McNabb said.
In the meantime, Ferguson said he would begin work with student organizations across campus. Traditionally, the new vice president of student organizations takes responsibility for the last funding cycle of the year, which begins in April, Ferguson said. This is the cycle during which student organizations apply for operational funds to use throughout the year.
Ferguson said he hopes to improve communication between ASG and student organizations. Pazyniak said as vice president of campus activities she will work to improve collaboration between student organizations and the Campus Activities Council.
"I'm looking forward to transitioning into the position," Pazyniak said. "I have a lot to learn, the ins and outs of Campus Activities Council. I'm excited about getting started and about putting my platform finally in action."
Both the president-elect and vice president-elect have said working with administration on financial and academic issues will be priorities in the upcoming year.
"We're going through some hard economic times, and it's important to maintain some transparency there and keep the academic integrity of the university strong," Harris said.
McNabb said student involvement with the administration will be important in the coming months.
"The two biggest things we'll deal with are the financial crisis and academics," McNabb said. "Student representation needs to be strong in both areas."
