UA announces new nominees
Institute committee chair positions still available
Nominees for UA officer positions were announced Monday evening. At a meeting this coming Tuesday, the UA Council will vote to officially appoint the nominees. Excluding the Chief of Staff, the nominees (see sidebar) were selected from an initial pool of about 40 students who applied for the 19 positions posted online at http://re-invent.mit.edu/apply, 20 of which were mostly interviewed by UA President Jonté D. Craighead ’13 and Vice President Michael P. Walsh ’13 in consultation with relevant committee members. The chief of staff’s main responsibility is chairing the Nominations Committee, which includes “soliciting applications for representatives to Institute Committees, interviewing candidates, and selecting a slate of nominees,” according to the UA Constitution.
“Given the urgent need for a chief of staff, we exclusively interviewed candidates with Institute Committee experience and conducted more in-depth interview with them,” wrote Craighead to the UA Council Monday night in an email regarding nominations.
The chief of staff, treasurer, and secretary must be approved by a 2/3 vote of the UA Council at Tuesday’s meeting, and the Finance Board chair must be approved by a majority vote. The remaining nominees for officers and committee chairs will be confirmed if fewer than five objections by Council Representatives against them are registered by Tuesday. If more there are more than five objections, the nominee will require approval by a majority of the Council vote. There is no reason to suspect the nominations will not be approved.
About nine of the originally advertised positions remain to be filled, and the UA plans to continue accepting applications.
“We are going to continue interviewing candidates from our application pool to find a place for everyone who was interested in a leadership position,” wrote Craighead in an email to The Tech. Positions with no candidates as of yet may be left temporarily vacant “depending on the relative importance of the positions.”
As the UA Council will not be in session during the summer, nominees selected after next Tuesday may be appointed by the president as acting officers and chairs as per the new UA Constitution, and they will undergo the same approval process at the first meeting when the Council reconvenes in the fall.
“Ideally, we would have preferred to have all of the nominations prepared [by the meeting],” wrote Craighead to the UA Council, “but given the lateness of elections, we are prioritizing quality candidates over hastened candidate reviews.”
With an email sent to all undergraduates last night, the UA Nominations Committee, chaired by the chief of staff, has begun soliciting applications from students for Institute Committee positions, with a priority deadline of May 13 and a final deadline of May 18.