Union Board elections select 12 new directors, 4 return for next year

The votes have been tallied and interviews have been conducted.

Now, Union Board will be under the direction of a new set of leaders — 12 new and four returning.

Voting, which took place Dec. 7 and 8, allowed students to choose eight candidates to become directors, with the remaining 27 of 36 candidates interviewed by a selection committee Dec. 10 to fill the eight remaining spots.

Sean Liston, the previous Union Board president, said the hardest part of the process was the selection phase.

“We have so many well-qualified candidates running,” Liston said. “It’s always hard to make that call to tell people that they didn’t get selected.”

The election and selection process is targeted to help a wide array of candidates, returning director Evan Farrell said.

“The whole process is beneficial to all types of people running because the election allows the candidates to show how much they want the position because they campaign,” Farrell said. “The selection process chooses the remaining candidates by skill. This provides a good opportunity for a diverse board.”

New director George Thomas said he was pleasantly surprised by the selection part of the process.

“I was really impressed by the selection process because I thought I would only be interviewed by three or four people,” Thomas said. “In reality there were 10 to 12 people interviewing me, so it was better than I expected.”

Before running to become a director this semester, Thomas served as a member of Union Board and worked as assistant director for both Union Board’s public relations and debates and issues.

One of his goals as new director, he said, is to unite Union Board and other organizations on campus, specifically the greek system.

“I definitely want to bridge the gap with Union Board and the greek community,” Thomas said. “Being Greek, I know that we do so much with social and philanthropy events that it would be easy to co-sponsor events to give Union Board more of a
presence.”

Farrell, who served as director for films, has specific goals about strengthening awareness of Union Board on campus.

“When I talked to people, not many of them knew that there was even an election going on,” Farrell said. “We need to brand Union Board more because we are a portion of the fees students pay in their tuition. It’s hard to reach these people if they don’t know about us.”

Farrell also said he is looking forward to working with the new board of directors next year.

“I’m excited to see what all the new members have to offer,” Farrell said. “There are also some healthy returning members as well. Next year’s board should be new, fresh and cool.”