iUnity begins work as new IUSA administration

iUnity executives said they are ready to hit the ground running after Thursday’s inauguration.

IU Student Association’s 2010-11 administration officially began its term Friday after months of campaigning and a close election. Filling staff positions, tackling projects large and small and building campus relationships topped the administration’s list of new term activities.

Chief of Staff and sophomore Neil Kelty said his first priority will be sorting through the more than 107 staff applications iUnity has received since they became available to students. Selected applicants will be invited to interview for positions on staff.

And then there’s Little 500 week.

Kelty said he and other executives will continue to work through the notorious party week but will not be conducting staff interviews until after the IU Student Foundation event has finished. Kelty said iUnity did not want to detract from IUSF or stress potential staff members.

“We didn’t want to make people interview, that’s kind of too much stress,” Kelty said.

Kelty said moving forward with initiatives will be the next step after creating a staff.

“The top five or six people will continue to go hard and make sure we have things in place for next year,” Kelty said.

This will include giving staff members more room to work on “special projects.”

The Btown administration allocated money to a “special projects fund” after the elimination of multiple unused office phones and the removal of an executive assistant for its IMU office.

The special projects fund provided the financial basis for the IUSA sponsored case competition, as well as several smaller projects.

iUnity would like to expand that idea, Kelty said. Because platform initiatives like a fall break, the GPS bus tracking system and the cross-campus bike rental system have already seen progress by the previous administration, Kelty said iUnity would like to give more resources to students who discover worthy projects.

“We should see a majority of our work continued and kind of completed by the end of the year,” Kelty said.

Kelty went on to say iUnity wanted to leave room in its budget for smaller, simpler projects.

Some executives will be working through the summer to make sure they are prepared for the coming year, Kelty said.

New vice president for Administration and junior Peter SerVaas will only be moving his desk from one side of IUSA’s IMU office to the other. SerVaas was president of the Btown administration.

“I’d say the first thing I intend to tackle are continuing or creating the relationships with the IU administration as well as student organizations across campus,” SerVaas said in an e-mail interview.

New president and junior Michael Coleman said his immediate plans include “eliminating the factor of iUnity and Kirkwood.”

Coleman said he hopes to include members of the two competing tickets in his administration in order to build a strong staff.

Coleman said he also recognized that a fall break is one issue weighing heavily on students’ minds. After the Bloomington Faculty Council votes on a proposed 2011-12 plan that would include a fall break in October, iUnity will assess what it means for its administration.

As with many of iUnity’s platform issues, a fall break will constitute another initiative carried by both iUnity and Btown. Coleman said a denial of the proposed plan would cause iUnity to look for alternative options.