On Wednesday night, there was finally an election at UB with more than one candidate.
Jimmy Corra, a sophomore economics major, was elected Speaker of the Student Association Assembly over his opponent Jack Oshei, a sophomore political science major in Student Union 330.
“For me, Assembly is really a passion. I truly enjoy my involvement in it and look forward to future involvement over the next two years over at UB,” Corra said. “The Assembly is in a really good place right now. We’re a vital branch of the SA.”
The Speaker’s duties are to oversee the SA Assembly, which approves constitutional changes and whose members must receive a certain amount of signatures before joining the voting body. There have been a number of unopposed student elections this year – including the SA elections last week in which the Unity Party won and the UB Council Student Representative election being held this week – but Corra faced opposition in Oshei.
“I was very sad to leave the position but I have the utmost faith in Jimmy and everything he’s done,” said Melissa Kathan, current SA Assembly Speaker. “He’s been a very active Assembly man for the past two years and I have all the confidence in the world that he will do a successful job and bring new things to Assembly and continue to grow and expand it.”
Kathan is currently running opposed for UB Council student representative. Corra, who has been a member of the SA Assembly for the past two years, said he has been able to “observe it’s growth and the changes that occurred” within the Assembly.
“As a former orientation leader and current student assistant to Vice President [of University Life and Services] Dennis Black, I have daily interaction with leaders of our campus and could easily advocate Student Assembly with them,” Corra said.
Corra said his two major goals for the Assembly are marketing recruitment and advocacy. Corra, the current marketing and social media intern in the UB Honors College, said he would like to collaborate with SA clubs by getting at least one member from each club to join the Assembly so that a wider range of students are represented.
Corra said he wants to change the Assembly’s recruitment process by having petitions readily available and recruiting new members during summer orientations to market toward students that could join Assembly the next year. He also said putting up SA Assembly flyers and building a strong social media presence can increase recruitment.
He said this will not only give SA Assembly a more visible presence, but will allow it to enact change in the UB community in other ways while also identifying as a group.
Corra would also like the Assembly to participate in more service-oriented activities.
“I want Assembly to be a driving force in service next year, whether that’s by hosting our own events or being a cohesive group at other service days like UB Community Day or UB Pride and Service Day,” Corra said.
Corra said he would like to continue Assembly meetings in a public space in order to increase transparency. He said setting up cameras in back of Assembly hall during meetings and uploading to a public archive will make the Assembly much more transparent because students could view the meetings at any time.
Corra said he feels “very thankful and very excited for the year.” He said he has a lot of things that he wants to do and is very glad that he’ll have the opportunity to do them.
Ashely Inkumsah is the news editor and can be reached at news@ubspectrum.com
