Dear Wellesley,
I hope everyone had a super wonderful Spring Weekend! With spring truly around the corner and the flowers on campus going into full bloom, I hope that everyone takes some time to stop and smell the flowers – and be prepared in case of allergies!
This week, College Government is hosting Special Elections for the positions of College Government Vice-President and Organizations Chair from Tuesday, April 16 to Tuesday, April 23, and I urge all students to be active participants in the process. These two positions are arguably intimately involved in College Government’s student governance work and require much interfacing with students. In addition, as College Government has actively worked to restructure these two positions, there is much work for students elected to these positions to do to craft a compelling vision for their roles and committees in the upcoming year.
The College Government Vice-President (CGVP) will be responsible for supporting student voices on campus issues by overseeing the appointment of student representatives to College administrative committees, liaising between representatives and faculty and administration, and providing training to representatives. The Organizations Chair will be responsible for supporting student organizations by facilitating the organization recognition process, coordinating the student organizations fair and providing relevant training and resources to organizational leadership.
I understand that many students have thoughts about how student organizations can better thrive on campus: I know that space reservations are still an issue, organization e-boards need be better equipped with skills for leading meetings and mediating conflict and there can be space for greater collaboration between organizations as well. On the appointments and student representation side, students often mention that our current processes do not put forth the best student candidates to hold these key positions in administrative committees, and there can be better ways of connecting these student representatives and what they do to the student body at large.
The hope is that via a combination of positional restructuring and capable student leaders, we can move toward a new phase in making the governance of student organizations and student representation strong pillars of a thriving campus community. I encourage students to bring questions and concerns to the candidates during the debate happening from Thursday, April 18 from 7.30-8.30 p.m. in Alumnae Hall: let’s make sure that these candidates will be the ones who can take this forward. The debate will also be livestreamed on the Wellesley College Government Facebook page.
Voting happens via electronic ballot on April 23 (Tuesday), and information about candidates can be found at tinyurl.com/wellesleycgelections. Any questions related to Special Elections can be directed to special-elections-committee-19@wellesley.edu. Let’s have another good Elections run!
All my best,
Kimberly Chia Yan Min
College Government President 2018-2019
