by Jessica Stewart
Assistant News editor

In a well-contested election that ended in a landslide, Matt Fox ’03 and Sohana Punithakumar ’04 won the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) president and vice president seats,
respectively. 

According to Fox, changing the structure of the Community Outreach Committee, which links Wesleyan and Middletown and links student groups and the WSA, will be his first initiative as president. Other newly elected WSA members expressed similar interests in expanding student voice in WSA projects.

As online polls closed at midnight on Friday, Fox and Punithakumar checked the results and shook hands, according to Punithakumar. 

"I called both my parents and my phone was ringing for about an hour from friends," Fox said.

Punithakumar also celebrated with family, she said.

Winning by a margin of 268 votes, Fox defeated Matt Ferrisi ’04 and Sebastian Kaplan-Sears ’02. 251 students voted for Ferrisi while Kaplan-Sears received 219 votes. 

"I was surprised that I won by that kind of margin," Fox said. 

Punithakumar’s victory by 312 votes was even more outstanding. 

"Underclassmen do vote more," Punithakumar said. As a freshman, she received the majority of votes, 230, from her class. 

WSA elections have been plagued with student apathy in the past, characterized by few students voting and few students running for WSA positions.

This year’s 39 percent turnout suggested the competitive election brought more students to the online voting polls. Comparatively, only 27 percent voted last year when Andrew Calica
’01 was the sole candidate for president.

Fox, Ferrisi and Kaplan-Sears have varied affiliations and attract different voting pools, according to Fox, which may attribute to the increase in turnout. 

Fox noted that a larger fraction of students voted than citizens in national presidential elections in which only about 40 percent of registered voters go to the polls and not all eligible
voters are registered. 

A flurry of adamant email propaganda sent last week urged votes for one candidate or another. 

Olivia deBree ’01 wrote a controversial, pleading email to vote against Ferrisi. In the email she said, "DKE–and frats in general–have demonstrated that they are anti-queer, misogynistic,
and racist time and time again. In fact, at the Asian/Asian American anti-hate mail rally last night, someone read off recently committed hate crimes at Wesleyan and two of them were
racist acts committed by DKE brothers–not to mention their ‘we hate faggots’ incident last year."

Ferrisi, a member of DKE, said in an Argus sponsored debate last week that he would represent groups such as fraternities that he felt had not been represented fairly in the past.

"The increased turnout was because I ran," Ferrisi said after the election. "Many students felt as though they have not been represented in the past, and I hope in the future we can get
candidates to reach out to the entire spectrum of students."

"I was extremely impressed that Matt Ferrisi called me to congratulate me at 12:15 a.m.," Fox said, depsite attacks on Ferrisi’s character.

"All groups should be seen in a positive light," Fox added.

Matt Lerner ’03, representative-elect, suggested that more students voted because candidates publicized their names.

"We made the student body aware of our platform, associating our names with goals," Punithakumar said, who campaigned with Fox.

Despite heated campaigning for executive positions, junior and senior representative candidates remained unchallenged. Colleen Galbraith, Matt Lerner, George Briggs, Michael Chang
and Bob Kao ’03 won sophomore representative seats. Bob Kao was a write-in candidate who was elected. Molly Aaronson-Gelb ’02 and Eric Kushins ’02 filled only two of five seats for
senior representative. 

"I would’ve been surprised if I didn’t win," Aaronson-Gelb said.

During her two-year tenure in the WSA, Aaronson-Gelb has worked to revamp advising and facilitate communication between students and the Administration. She intends to continue
working on these projects, she said.

The freshman representative election was the only competitive contest with nine candidates running for five positions. Ryan Ungano, Jacko Tsang, Camille Zahniser, Al Garcia Jr. and
Zoe Goldberg were the winners.

In an effort to improve turnover in its members, the WSA held a first meeting of newly elected students Sunday to discuss ongoing projects and WSA functional procedures. 

The meeting also familiarized next year’s representatives with projects to continue this year’s efforts. 

This year’s election was held earlier in the semester to facilitate better turnover, according to Fox. 

Increasing the prevalence of the WSA through forums and open meetings is one of Punithakumar’s reform goals. 

"I would welcome student leaders and groups and let them know that the WSA is open to listen to their issues," she said. 

Lerner expressed similar interests in expanding student involvement in the WSA. 

"I like the idea that everyone has a voice," Lerner said. "Representatives are the epitome of that."

Reforming COCo, a current project in the WSA, would shift group recognition from the Budget Committee to COCo "to facilitate group interaction on campus," Fox said.

Lerner also said a more active community would precipitate from heightened interaction among groups and involvement in the WSA.

This Sunday’s vote in the WSA will determine how COCo will be structured next year. 

"Weekly Sunday meetings are open," Punithakumar said, stressing that many do not know that they can participate.

"The biggest battle is student voice on academic review," Fox said. "I don’t think we’ll face that till next year, but I want to start strategizing for that now."

While Fox foresaw ensuring every group’s inclusion in the WSA process as his biggest challenge, Lerner said his would be "not getting entrenched in the politics of it [WSA]."