The beginning of the transition between Associate Student Government administrations began Wednesday night, as the ASG Senate elected a new speaker, parliamentarian, clerk and treasurer.
Samir Pendse, Grace Adamson, Miranda Gonzalez and Brooke Stanislawski won executive board positions in the incoming administration.
The rest of the executive board elections take place on April 15.
Weinberg junior Samir Pendse was elected Senate Speaker. The current External Relations Chair won against SESP sophomore Claire Lew, who served as ASG Treasurer.
“I’m really appreciative of the Senate’s support,” Pendse said.
He added that he hoped to make ASG Senate an outlet for all students to express their concerns.
“It’s supposed to be a public forum for anyone,” he said. “I think it’d be great to make that more public.”
SESP junior Grace Adamson was the only person running for parliamentarian, and was sworn in without a vote. Adamson pledged to create more openness within the Rules committee.
“I’ve worked on the Rules Committee for quite some time and I think the biggest promise I can make to you is that I’ll listen,” she said. “I’m willing to maintain the old but I’m open to the new.”
Weinberg freshman Miranda Gonzalez won against Weinberg freshman Shalini Singh and Weinberg senior Hariharan Vijayaraghavan in the race for treasurer position. Vijayaraghavan ran as a joke candidate, being a senior and also having a platform which included using student funds for an ASG open bar. Therefore the contest was mainly between Gonzalez and Singh.
Gonzalez ran on a platform of transparency, and said Wednesday night that she was already working on trying to get budgets online to make it more accessible to students.
McCormick freshman Brooke Stanislawski ran unopposed for clerk. Although she said she had been thinking about joining the ASG executive board, her candidacy for clerk was very spontaneous.
“I had been thinking of applying for the exec board, but I didn’t know if I wanted to do it sophomore or junior year, and since no one was running, one of my friends nominated me, and I said yes,” she said. “Ever since a couple of months ago, I really wanted to be on the exec board for ASG, so I’m really excited that I got the position of clerk.”
Stanislawski said that her spontaneous candidacy wouldn’t have an impact on her capacity to do the job.
“I really am a quick learner, a lot of my teachers have said that about me, so in terms of the specifics of the job of clerk, I have confidence that I’ll be learning those skills very quickly,” she said.
Gonzalez expressed enthusiasm at the idea of working with a new executive board.
“I’m really excited for next year,” she said. “I think all the elections went really well and great people were chosen, and the exec board is going to be really strong.”