As their term as president and vice president of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) draws to a close, Antoine Perretta and Jim Francescon say they are happy with the progress they made this year, although not all of their campaign goals were met.
The biggest changes under the “Pioneers First” ticket’s leadership were the rebranding of the senate to the Undergraduate Student Government, the restructuring of its constitution and the formation of a new judicial branch to the government.
Also, under the current leadership additional funding was given to student organizations making it possible for more organizations to be funded and for many others to receive all of the funding they applied for.
“I think we capitalized on what we said we were going to do and did it,” Perretta said.
Francescon and Perretta also said they are proud of the enhancement of the first year and senior experiences, both of which were important campaign goals, as well as the resolution of a few unfinished projects.
“I think we brought a lot of closure to initiatives that were outstanding. The orgs [budget] was kind of up in the air, the bike share program was kind of up in the air and these have all been implemented and are utilized,” Perretta said.
However, not all of the goals they laid out for USG during their campaign last year were met.
In an interview with the Clarion during last year’s election, Perretta and Francescon promised increased transparency in student government through published senate updates and weekly video posts.
The “Pioneers First” ticket also promised to begin moving senate meetings to different locations on campus to encourage student involvement and attendance.
Only four senate sessions were actually moved out of Driscoll to different locations around campus.
Those initiatives have not been implemented this year. Perretta said one of the biggest stumbling blocks to meeting these goals was the lack of a USG website.
“[A website] would have helped us with some of our promises of transparency.
I do think we were very transparent in all of our actions and that would have only been enhanced with the use of a website,” Perretta said.
Francescon, who was elected as the USG president for next year, last week, said that transparency will continue to be a top priority under his leadership.
“The transparency aspect, that’s something we really want to hit hard next year,” Francescon said.
“This year we were able to really internally build up USG, redo the constitution make everything set, to launch a marketing campaign that will be successful next year with a website,” Francescon said.
Despite the few campaign platforms that were not enacted this year, even Perretta and Francescon’s opposing ticket, Joel Portman and Javier Ogaz, said that, while not all of the campaign goals were met, it was a strong leadership and a number of contributions to the school were made.
“As far as their platform, I think that they’ve been successful in a lot of areas,” said Portman, who campaigned for vice president on the “Unite” ticket with Ogaz last year.
