Leaders anticipate summertime work

Summer will be all work and no play for student government officials.

And they’re excited about it.

Leaders will spend their time planning and re-evaluating policies as they prepare for the upcoming year.

“There’s more simplicity in the summer,” said Student Body President Seth Dearmin. “It’s easier to gain access to administrators, and everything’s just more laid back — a great atmosphere to get things done.”

The Dearmin administration plans to knock out preliminary work on its platform this summer, he said. By the beginning of the semester, the new leader hopes to organize his platform points and divide them among committees.

Dearmin said his most specific goal for the summer is to complete work on establishing a single campus voting precinct — a change that must be approved by the General Assembly.

For the past two years, student government officials have lobbied to turn the campus’s six voting precincts into one.

Such a move could be especially helpful with local elections on the horizon. Municipal races typically attract far fewer students than state or federal elections, but student officials say a single precinct could change that.

Dearmin said members of his administration will travel to Raleigh and lobby for the precinct.

They also will be there for another reason: to fight against the proposed 4 percent budget cut for UNC-system schools.

“If our administration does anything this summer, we have to stop the budget cuts from happening,” said Adrian Johnston, student body vice president. “It’s $29 million that we have to keep in this university system.”

But Johnston added that the budget situation actually has helped address another of the Dearmin administration’s goals: getting more students involved in student government.

After officials sent a mass e-mail to the student body, 350 students volunteered fight the cuts, he said.

Individual projects aside, Dearmin said, his main goal is to communicate with students.

Other goals include streamlining online information for students by creating more central informative sites, increasing the funding for sports clubs and working with the Tuition Task Force.

Student Attorney General Matt McDowell said he also will use the summer months to evaluate the operations of the honor system.

“We’ll be taking a step back this summer to make sure everything’s going well,” he said.

Senior Class President Bobby Whisnant Jr. also is beginning to prepare for the next academic year.

His administration’s first event, an ice cream social for the class of 2006, will held be today in Polk Place.

But Whisnant said the biggest task will be planning for senior celebrations next spring.

“We’re hoping to raise, and then spend, between 50 and 80 thousand dollars to get a great speaker and a fun performer for the seniors.”

Dearmin said he’s eager to see the progress student officials will make throughout the summer and the coming year.

“There’s a really passionate group of people that are going to be working hard over the next whole year for this University,” Dearmin said. “I’m really excited about the results that we’ll see.”

Contact the University editor at udesk@unc.edu.