Preliminary candidates for the Graduate Student Senate elections have been announced.
Graduate Student Senate’s Board of Elections announced its preliminary candidates for the 2015-16 academic year Saturday morning.
Applications were due online April 3 and campaigning began once the application process closed. Student Affairs reviewed the applicants qualifications, but Ohio University’s Graduate College still needs to approve the list, which will be complete before Friday.
The following students will be running for executive positions:
The current GSS president, Carl Edward Smith III, will be running for a second year as president. Running for vice president of communications is Sarah Kaplan and Chelsea Foster. Kaplan attended OU as an undergraduate student studying specialized studies in multimedia and history. Foster currently serves as the Governmental Affairs Commissioner on GSS and received her undergraduate degree from OU. Liudmila Pestun, who currently serves on GSS as the international development studies representative, will be campaigning for vice president of administration.
“I’m interested in participating in university self-government,” Pestun, an international student from Belarus studying international development, said. “I hear people talking about student senate and graduate senate and they are very skeptical.
Pestun also believes GSS has the potential to accomplish a lot and incite change.
“We are trying to solve the problems that we see are problematic and unfair to graduate students and ... trying to improve the living conditions for graduate students,” she said.
Rose Troyer, current chief of staff for Student Senate, is running for vice president of legislative affairs.
GSS also announced its candidates for college senator positions.
The current GSS vice president of legislative affairs, Margaret Clark, will be running for a college senator position. Clark is in the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs and received her undergraduate degree from OU. Shaneil Taylor will also be running for a college senator position.
Ryan Patrick Dolan was originally running for a college senator position, but withdrew from the election because of a “workload issue,” he said in an email on Sunday.
The election ballot will be available online from 7 a.m. April 14 to 7 a.m. April 16.
Elected officials will be announced April 16 at 7 p.m. in Baker University Center.
@megankhenry
