Student Government Board candidates form slates

Students who run for Student Government Board must make a decision: form an alliance, or run… Students who run for Student Government Board must make a decision: form an alliance, or run solo.

Candidates have the opportunity to form slates — or campaign teams — but they must form them quickly. SGB elections code dictates that candidates must establish slates within two weeks of turning in their applications. They can’t form slates before the application process begins, and no more than three individual students can run together on a slate.

Slates allow candidates to campaign together, and thus theoretically reach a larger portion of the student body, SGB Elections Chair Kari Rosenkaimer said.

Candidates can support one another through verbal and electronic means regardless of slate affiliation. Student organizations and individuals can endorse slates and candidates running for Board.

This year, the SGB hopefuls formed five slates: Blue, Gold, Panther Pride, Panther Progress and Pitt First. However, joining a slate is not required. Two students, junior Julie Hallinan and sophomore CJ Stavrakos, will run independently in the Nov. 17 election.

Sophomore Olivia Armstrong is running on the Gold slate as a prospective Board member along with two other Board candidates.

She said the three decided to run together because of mutual friendships. Armstrong met her running mates, junior Gordon Louderback and sophomore Natalie Rothenberger, through Pitt Outdoor Odyssey and Pitt Pathfinders, respectively.“I admire them both and know that they will make excellent Board members,” she said in an email.Armstrong said her two running mates offer great insight and feedback — they can use each other as a sounding board to generate better ideas.

Panther Progress is another slate comprised of three candidates running for Board. Juniors Tyler Walters, Halim Genus and Robert Beecher formed the slate because of their shared experience with leadership positions on campus.“It’s really an organic process of discussing ideas,” Beecher said about joining up with the two other candidates that he met at the Panther Gold Retreat, a Pitt event designed to help students with leadership skills.

Walters is a member of the political science honors association, Pi Sigma Alpha. Genus serves as the president of the Black Action Society, and Beecher is the business manager for Pitt College Democrats.

Senior John Hasley, a current Board member, is one of two students running for president. He said when he formed the Panther Pride slate, he looked for people with SGB experience and campus involvement. From there, Hasley talked with the potential slate-mates to ensure that he had a solid team of people for the 2012-13 term. Hasley chose senior David Clark and junior Megan McGrath.

Clark is a member of the SGB Allocations Committee and treasurer of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. McGrath serves as a member of the Safety & Transportation and the Public Relations SGB committees and on the executive board of Theta Phi Alpha sorority. It’s good to have a kind of synergy. It’s good to have something larger than yourself,” Hasley said.

Senior and current Board member James Landreneau is running against Hasley for president. He said he tried to choose a diverse group for his Blue slate.

He wanted students that have been active on campus and turned to close friends to see if they knew anyone who would be interested in running for Board and joining his slate. He then interviewed the candidates.

Landreneau found junior Alex Murdoch, a First Year Mentor and the president of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, and sophomore Zoe Samudzi, the vice president of STAND, a student anti-genocide coalition.

“Once you sit down with him, you know he was ready to go, ready to rock,” Landreneau said about Murdoch. He described Samudzi as a reserved woman who carries a big voice.

Although the names of the Blue and Gold slates and Panther Pride and Panther Progress slates might sound matchy, Landreneau said that this is coincidental. He said that, in addition to his own, he personally supports the Gold slate.

Hallinan is one of the candidates not running on a slate.The prospective board candidate said that she doesn’t think running alone is a disadvantage.

“I’m working as hard as [the candidates on slates] are,” she said, adding that she has spoken with multiple organizations, including club sports teams and Greek groups.