Graduate students elect representatives

Nine new representatives beat out 19 other candidates in fall RSG election

By Johanna Wetmore

Daily Staff Reporter

After the week long online voting effort to fill seats in one of the more competitive elections in Rackham Student Government's recent history, the results still caught some candidates off guard.

"People sent me e-mails and congratulations all day and I haven't even seen the results yet," said Engineering and Physical Sciences representative seat winner Tara Javidi.

Javidi shares her victory with Hisham Sati. Together they will fill the two seats in the Engineering and Physical sciences division.

The nine new representatives beat out 19 other candidates in what RSG president Damon Fairfield considers very high candidate participation.

Selected to fill the three empty seats for the health and biological sciences division are Jocelyn Ziemian, Siobhan Maty and Clarise Rivera.

The lone seat in the Art and Humanities division will go to Lingling Zhao, who won over Remy Debes with 59 percent of the vote.

Melissa Mercer will claim the open seat in the Education division with 42 percent of the vote over Kam Siu and Angelique Warren.

Social Science division candidates Paxton Williams and Sam Carroll won the two available seats by an almost equal margin. "People who know us and like us know we take the initiative and work well together," said Carroll of why he and fellow Public Policy student Williams won the seats.

Carroll, who said he does not think campaigning fueled his victory, said his strategy was simple. "I just sent out an e-mail to my department announcing my candidacy."

Javidi admitted that she did not need to campaign for this election either thanks to endorsements by students groups including the Palestine Committee and the Student Greens. "It was very nice of them," Javidi said. "I hope now I can do useful things."

Nearly 11percent of the 6,302 eligible graduate student voters logged on last week to cast their ballots, a turnout which to Fairfield signals progress for the RSG. "It's a sign that we're doing things that students are interested in," he said.