It has been just under a week since Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) left office as president and vice president of the Georgetown University Student Association after two terms.
Although Angert and Kluger have been praised quite often for their tenure, we here at Vox were curious to see if they followed through on their reelection campaign platform.
[Editor’s note: The official campaign website, calenandjason.com, no longer is operational. The following goals are those that they opted to highlight on their Facebook page.]
Create a “gusaHELP” email account to answer student questions about anything ranging from the Student Code of Conduct to maintenance concerns.
Although it sounds like a helpful idea and similar to 2011 GUSA candidate Charlie Joyce’s (COL ’12) WikiHow website idea, this email account never came to fruition.
On Sunday, the GUSA Senate voted to create budgets for the Student Life, Community-Building and Outreach, and Academic Affairs Committees to draw small amounts of money from without going to the Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Student Life and Academic Affairs recieved $250 each, while Community-Building and Outreach snagged $500.
The budgets are not set in stone, though; if a committee exceeds its budget, it will simply revert back to the old plan of approval of case-by-case, itemized appeals. The bill passed almost unanimously, with only one tongue-in-cheek “nay” vote.
The agenda of this Sunday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association was dominated by the vote on the budget passed out of the Financial Appropriations Committee for fiscal year 2011 on Thursday.
But Senators still found time to remark on the most recent controversy at Georgetown, the Plan A protest held over GAAP weekend, and dream about convening the GUSA Senate in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.
GUSA Budget FY ’11: The GUSA Senate voted to approve the fiscal year 2011 GUSA budget, which allocated $0 to both the Student Activities Commission and the Performing Arts Advisory Council. The budget will increase the level of funding received by Club Sports, Georgetown Program Board, the Center for Social Justice, and the GUSA Executive, while funding for the Media Board will remain unchanged.
Members of the Financial and Appropriations Committee who presented the budget said they had brought the budget without funding for either SAC or PAAC before the Senate because they didn’t want to delay funding for the other advisory boards. They are working to reach agreements with SAC and PAAC on compromises so the two groups could meet GUSA’s six suggested reforms and receive money from the student activities fee.
The senators said they were confident that both PAAC and SAC would receive student activities fee from supplemental funding after they had complied with the reforms. Senators have said that the agreement with PAAC is only awaiting a review by its members. Meanwhile, Senators will meet with SAC soon to try to negotiate an agreement.
This week’s Georgetown University Student Association meeting featured an irksome inauguration (just like Obama’s!) and tear-jerking eulogies to Philly P’s. Here’s the wrap:
Inaugurations: GUSA swore in the newly-reelected President and Vice President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11)—perhaps extraconstitutionally?
“There is a curious little quirk of the by-laws which requires the outgoing president and vice-president to administer the oath to the incoming president and vice-president,” Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ’12) told the Senate. Given that the outgoing president and vice-president and the incoming president and vice-president were one and the same, Ungar decided to administer the oath himself.
After their swearing in, both candidates delivered speeches to the GUSA senate. Kluger called on the Senate to remember Gandhi’s words to become the change they want to see in the world, while Angert urged Senators to maintain their dedication to the GUSA senate and never be afraid to throw themselves into large and challenging projects. Angert then swore in newly-elected Senator Andrew Foley (MSB ’10), who could not raise his right hand because his arm is broken—another suspect inauguration?
GUSA Fund Bolsters Funding Board: The GUSA senate approved a bill to transfer $15,000 from the GUSA fund to the Student Activities Fee Reserve account, which is used to provide funds to advisory boards. Chairman of the Finance and Appropriations Committee Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said he had talked with GUSA Fund Chair Kate Petersen (COL ’11) and that she said the GUSA Fund could limit its spending to $15,000 for the semester.
“We simply want to go into the budget process with as much money as we can,” Troiano said.
New Sign: GUSA unanimously approved a bill to appropriate $200 towards the creation of a vinyl sign bearing GUSA’s logo. The bill was introduced by Senator Nolan Johnson (COL’11), who said the sign was “a great way to make use of GUSA’s new logo”.
In a solid victory over runners-up Matt Wagner (SFS ’11) and Emmanuel Hampton (COL ’11) and two other tickets, Georgetown University Student Association President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) have won reelection to the GUSA executive, student Election Commissioners report.
Angert and Kluger won in the first round, but since votes were close, Election Commissioners said, results were run to round two.
In a separate victory, this year’s GUSA Election does not appear to have involved the kind of catastrophes that have marred several previous elections, including trouble with instant run-off voting in 2008, and the adamantly protested, last-minute disqualification of two tickets in last year’s election.
This week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate included a heated contest to fill a vacant seat on the Finance and Appropriations committee, and a denouncement of Eric Cusimano’s extracurricular involvements. Here’s the wrap:
Finance and Appropriations Committee Post Filled
In perhaps the most contentious part of the meeting, Senator Ben Bold (COL’13) was selected by the full Senate to fill a vacancy on the Finance and Appropriations Committee. During his time for remarks, Bold said he had closely followed the work of the Finance and Appropriations Committee and had fully supported the funding board reform. Bold ran against Senator Matthew Ginsberg (COL’11), who said that he was suited for the job because he had an interest in financial allocations and had served as a director for the Corp.
During the debate over the confirmation, some Senators appeared to argue that Senator Bold was competent and self-motivated, and therefore should be opposed. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) warned against a “leadership accretion” on the FinApp Committee, while FinApp Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said, “Our committee has enough ambition and self-motivated people … We have to distribute this energy to all the committees.” Ultimately, however, Bold’s attributes were deemed more of a good thing than a bad thing, and he was approved by a 10-8 vote.
A little late out of the gate, President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ’11), who are running for reelection in Tuesday’s Georgetown University Student Association for President and VP, have posted their campaign video.
Their video, complete with outtakes, features “Eye of the Tiger,” slap fights, role playing, an endorsement by two men’s basketball players (they’re getting real political this season, aren’t they?) and no rap. Enjoy!
On Sunday, Georgetown University Student Association Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) announced to the GUSA Senate that they planned to run for reelection in the presidential election on February 23.
In an interview with Vox, Angert said that they had been considering whether or not they would run again for some time now.
“We’ve been asked a lot whether or not we were gonna run again, but before we decided, we wanted to make sure that we had value added we could give, things that could continue to be improved upon, very real achievable goals,” he said.
Angert explained that he and Kluger will be running on an agenda platform that promises to achieve specific goals, one which they will reveal in more detail once campaigning actually begins. Their agenda will focus on improving student safety, campus and social life, and student space.
“I’m a huge fan of the word agenda as opposed to platform. People should expect a GUSA candidate to deliver on all of the items they’re running on,” Kluger said.
Without giving away what he and Kluger will be specifically promising—they said they would be exploring what they can realistically promise over the next week—Angert said that their agenda would probably include new initiatives to improve student safety and a push for more and better student space.
Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) shot back at the critics of GUSA’s funding board reform at yesterday’s meeting, delivering an eight-minute rebuttal to a recent Voice editorial, which advocated against the reform. In Troiano’s words, he wanted to “set the record straight.” He described the editorial’s claim that reform could “threaten the funding sources for clubs and sports teams” as “unfounded, incendiary remarks, that I believe are flat-out irresponsible for a campus media outlet to state.”
Troiano cited a 2006 referendum that passed with 91 percent of the vote to give GUSA the power to appropriate Student Association funds as evidence that the student population was in support of the reform. He said that “91 percent of students disagree with the editorial board” on the board’s assertion that giving the Senate absolute control over the student activities fee threatens student clubs and student life on campus.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
It has been just under a week since Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) left office as president and vice president of the Georgetown University Student Association after two terms.
GUSA’s intended punishment for the Voice
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