New IUSA student government takes power today

The changing of the guard has occurred. At midnight Tuesday, executive members of the Crimson ticket stood ready on the third floor of the Student Activities Tower of the Indiana Memorial Union, ready to relieve the Kirkwood executives of their year-long service to the student body.\nTheir first issue was to physically rearrange the offices to accommodate a working environment. For IUSA president Casey Cox, this meant moving his couch into a nearly empty presidential cubicle, hanging framed copies of the U.S. Constitution and the Crimson slogan on the walls, and filling the empty desk space with his IUSA mug, the quill pen his girlfriend gave to commemorate the election victory and masses of papers that would soon need his attention. \nIUSA vice president Grant McFann faced an altogether different challenge.\n"I just have a different working style then the last VP," he said while clearing stacks of disheveled file folders and papers out of the vice president's office, pouring them into an already overflowing garbage can.\nTheir next, and more difficult task, was to assume the responsibilities and relationships of the previous administration.\n"Anytime you bring in new people to IUSA, the (IU) administration wants to know if they are for real or just pretending," Cox said. "We wanted to establish our sincerity right away. We hope to bring fresh life into some of our old relationships. Kirkwood kept a good balance, and we hope to keep that trend alive."\nCox said he has been discussing many of Crimson's platform ideas with administrators, including the extension of drunk busing and adding new blue emergency lights on campus.\nIn conjunction with the Crimson takeover of the IUSA offices, the swearing in of the new executives and Congress was the first order of business at Tuesday's IUSA meeting. \n"That's when it feels official," said sophomore SPEA representative Exton Cordingley, a newly elected member of the Crimson ticket. "Once that was out of the way, we felt legitimate in trying to get things accomplished for IU students."\nIndeed, Tuesday's meeting included the passing of a resolution to recommend a study on the functionality and effectiveness of the blue campus emergency stations.\nDespite the smoothness of the transition of office from Kirkwood to Crimson, the new IUSA administration would have been hard pressed to enter office without the guidance of the outgoing executives.\n"(The Kirkwood executives) warned us that we have to be committed," McFann said. "You work really hard to run for something you believe in, but once you're in, you have to work even harder to accomplish your goals"