Bhatia, Lanier to take reins of LSA Student Government

Geeta Bhatia and Gregg Lanier were elected LSA Student Government president and vice president, respectively, after beating their nearest opponents by nearly 600 votes.

The Students' Party swept the presidency, vice presidency and eight of the nine representative spots. Michigan Party presidential and vice-presidential candidates Pac Man Shuen and David Silver received 605 votes to Bhatia and Lanier's 1,180. New Frontier Party candidates Conrad DeWitte and Jonathan Voigt received 201 votes.

Bhatia and Lanier said they are looking forward to their tenure in LSA-SG, whose role is primarily in academics.

Unifying the government is the first order of business, Bhatia said.

"We want to bring everyone together," Bhatia said. "We all ran under parties but regardless of how we got elected, we all have the same goal and we need to focus on that."

Bhatia and Lanier currently are working with LSA Assistant Dean David Schoem to improve departmental student clubs and their relations with departmental committees.

"We're going to establish the network we were campaigning on," Bhatia said. "We want to strengthen the clubs to have student representation on departmental committees."

Although campaigning was grueling, student voters offered valuable input on how to improve LSA, Lanier said.

"Campaigning was time-consuming, but worth the while because I got the chance to meet a lot of LSA students and hear their ideas," Lanier said. "I don't think name recognition helped that much. It was the contacts we've already made through the projects we've been working on."

Many newly elected representatives said they have concrete plans on how to improve the academic life of students. Incoming Michigan Party representative Laurie Linden, an LSA first-year student, said her goals are focused on projects that her constituents have requested.

"My first plan will be diving into this foreign language requirement," Linden said. "I also want to see some of the academic advising improved. I want to look into extending the drop/add deadline."

The top point-recipient was LSA sophomore Rupa Patel, who said she had the edge in the campaign because she is an incumbent.

"Elections are a fun, yet a very tedious, time-consuming and sometimes unfair process," Patel said. "I've worked really hard this year as chair of the appointments committee."

Patel said she and fellow student representatives plan to establish an LSA "ambassador program" that would appoint students to represent different student groups on the assembly.

These students would not be able to vote, but they would provide the necessary communication link between the student government and the more than 400 LSA student groups on campus, Patel said.

Members of the New Frontier Party were unavailable for comment yesterday.

03-24-98