UB Council election approaching

Potential candidates for the UB Council, a high-profile advisory board to the university president, have until Monday to complete petitions allowing them to run in the upcoming March election.

Only one student serves on the board, which is comprised of prominent local community figures who meet with President John B. Simpson on a regular basis. The governor appoints the other nine members to seven-year terms. Both undergrads and graduate students elect the student member to a one-year term.

Current council member and student representative Jonathan Yedin said that making decisions on the council was a memorable experience.

"In the UB Council, we've done a lot. We hired a lot of different vice presidents, and UB2020 has been a work in progress," said Yedin, a senior political science major.

The UB Council reviews all of the university's major activities and plans in all fields, including academics, student life, finance, and buildings and grounds.

"Our hope is that council members will be well-informed of issues in the university and that they will bring a community opinion to the council," said Constance Holoman, administrative deputy to the president. "The student member brings a student voice and perspective to those discussions."

According to Jennifer Wantz, assistant director in the Office of Student Life, there should be about 10-15 candidates this year, as opposed to last year's six. Wantz said the number of voters all depends on the people who are running, and sharp increases in recent years is due to a number of factors.

"Students voters were double last year what they were the year prior to that," she said. "I think it's because students are learning the UBLearns program now, more than they were. Freshmen are more comfortable with it because more classes are using it."

The online election held through UBLearns, the university's application of the Blackboard course management system.

"We send out a mass e-mail to students Sunday night, before the week that the election begins," Wantz said.

This year, the election starts on March 20 at 9 p.m. and will run until midnight on March 22. The winner will be announced the morning of March 23.

The campaigns will last three weeks, so that each candidate will have the same amount of time to campaign, including members of the medical school, which has a different spring break than the rest of UB. During that time, candidates will have to follow strict guidelines.

"There are lots of rules," Wantz said. "For instance, they can't send out e-mail blasts, using listservs or anything. Also, the student government can't sponsor a person."

Student Life also makes sure that everything in the election runs smoothly and according to plan.

"We monitor it and make sure everything is going cool with the campaigns," Wantz said. "(Candidates) can't sit at computers at the computer center, and say to people 'Hey, you have to log on here and vote for me.' They can't do things like that."

Candidates have to turn in a 300-signature petition by Monday. In a meeting on March 2, they will have all of the rules and regulations found in the explicit election codes explained.

Student Life runs the elections instead of each individual student government because of the scheduling of the elections, and other factors.

"It's really difficult to set up six different polling places," Wantz said. "These elections happen all of the time. It's really hard for (governments), so we offered to run it for them."

Yedin said that the election process is exciting, but he wished that there was more coverage of candidates in the press. He also said that student feedback could be somewhat weak.

"On the university's side, they took my ideas," Yedin said. "They were great and wanted to work with them. I didn't quite get it from the students."

That didn't discourage Yedin from involving himself in major university decisions.

"I helped mold (UB2020) together and shape it," Yedin said. "Now we're just going to go forth and do it. I'm really excited about it. The degree, a UB degree, is going to mean a lot more than it did in the past, because of it."

The UB Council meets two times a month, and council members often sit on standing committees that also include community volunteers, to carry out the work of the council.