By Bill Shaner, News Staff
After the election of Katie Kerber to Senior Resident Assistant Representative last night, the Resident Student Association (RSA) completed its nearly month-long election process for next year’s executive board.
Kerber will act as a liaison between tenured resident assistants (RAs) known as Senior Resident Assistants (SRA), and RSA. She ran uncontested after her opponent, Aliah Qatarneh, stepped down due to a personal commitment that would interfere with the position.
On March 24, Pearl Rimon was elected to vice president for programming and Harlan Kaine was elected to alumni affairs coordinator.
With last night’s election, RSA completed its election process. The president elect, Chucker Berds and two vice presidents – Stephen McBride for housing services and Tina Sherman for administration – were elected March 11. Current President Sean Naegeli said the delay was due to lack of participation in the election process.
“The reason it’s taken a little bit longer than normal is there hasn’t been enough people stepping up to run for these positions,” he said. “A lot of the reason’s due to a lot of people moving off campus or studying abroad.”
Traditionally, the occupant of Kerber’s position was an SRA as the position acts as a liaison between the SRAs and RSA but Kerber is only an RA so RSA waived the SRA requirement to allow Kerber and others to run.
“I think we have a very young body, our general council is mostly freshmen and sophomores,” Naegeli said. “And since our requirements cater towards upper classmen, it’s a little difficult to get these positions.”
But, he said he’s confident in the new executive board’s ability despite some younger members. He especially touted the ability of the president elect, sophomore Chucker Berds.
“I think he’s going to do an amazing job at harnessing [the young executive board’s] passion and making sure we get results,” he said.
Berds said he is also excited and optimistic about next year. He will meet with his new executive board to begin planning on Sunday. One thing he said he hopes to address early is a possible expansion of gender-neutral housing on campus.
“They’re all definitely really passionate and that’s the most important thing to me to is that we elect people who are passionate about the position,” Naegeli said.
Vice President of Student Affairs Ed Klotzbier spoke briefly at the meeting, referencing what he wants his office to achieve next year.
“As we go more and more international and I think about the students we bring internationally and ore important the students we send abroad, what are we doing for those students?” he said.
He said he hoped to launch programs to both welcome international students to the Northeastern Community and help Northeastern students go abroad, generally hoping to adequately address the growing international theme at Northeastern.
