Tag Archive: Yale College Council

  1. Mysterious email calls for another YCC runoff

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    An email to students Wednesday afternoon lampooned the recent confusion over the Yale College Council presidential race.

    “YCC Elections Committee” — email address yccelectionscommittee@yahoo.com — emailed students claiming that it had overlooked another clause in the YCC’s election rules. (Read more about the first overlooked clause here.) The clause, as it turns out, invalidates John Gonzalez’ ’14 victory in the presidential race and Aly Moore’s ’14 win in the race for UOFC chair.

    At issue, according to the email, was a little known part of the YCC Constitution: Article VII, Section 4, Clause J.

    “The YCC Constitution specifies that if a candidate has a given name of four or seventeen letters, or a name that ends in the letter Y, they are prohibited from running in the election, unless they win by a margin of EXACTLY 43.9975835562 percent,” said the email. “Trust us, this will make sense someday.”

    Neither Gonzalez nor Moore won by a margin of 43.9975835562 percent, but we’re pretty sure their victories stand. We missed hearing from you, Pundits. It’s been awhile.

  2. Gonzalez ’14 wins runoff for YCC president

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    After an overlooked clause threw the race to become next year’s Yale College Council president to a runoff, John Gonzalez ’14 won 59.91 percent of the vote to defeat Eric Eliasson ’14, the YCC announced early Wednesday morning.

    The YCC declared Gonzalez the winner of the election in an email Friday night. But the elections committee retracted the statement the next day, citing a clause in the YCC constitution indicating that Gonzalez had not obtained a sufficient margin to be named the winner. The election went to a runoff held Monday and Tuesday, alongside a runoff for UOFC chair between Aly Moore ’14 and Bobby Dresser ’14. Moore took the UOFC race, earning 53.71 percent of the vote.

    Gonzalez, the current Sophomore Class Council president, called the runoff election “very, very stressful,” but said he was glad for an additional opportunity to meet students and hear their opinions.

    “I just spent the last 10 minutes clicking my heels and screaming out the window in glee,” Gonzalez told the News early Wednesday morning, minutes after learning of his victory from YCC Vice President Omar Njie ’13.

    Read more in tomorrow’s News.

  3. YCC presidential race heads to runoff

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    John Gonzalez ’14 and Eric Eliasson ’14 will face off in a runoff election for the Yale College Council presidency Monday, the Election Committee announced Saturday — less than 24 hours after the Elections Committee declared Gonzalez the next YCC president.

    The Elections Committee retracted their original announcement to comply with a clause in the YCC Constitution that has been overlooked in recent years, the Elections Committee, chaired by YCC Vice President Omar Njie ’13, said in a press release.

    The YCC Constitution states if a candidate wins less than 40 percent of the vote, he or she must have 10 percent more votes than the nearest candidate to be declared winner. Any smaller margin triggers a runoff election between the top two candidates.

    Gonzalez won 39.79 percent of the vote, and Eliasson won 30.73 percent, a 9.06 percent margin.

    “Although this election rule of the YCC constitution has been neglected in years past, we feel it is our responsibility to uphold the YCC constitution,” the Elections Committee wrote in a press release.

    In recent years, the clause in the YCC’s constitution has largely been ignored.

    In 2007, Joshua Tan ’09 won a three-way race for UOFC chair with 37.61 percent of the vote, while the second place candidate captured 32.41 percent of the vote. There was no runoff election held.

    In 2008, the former executive board position of YSAC Chair was won with a margin of 5.4 percent, without a runoff election, the Election Committee said in the press release.

    During the 2010 elections, there was no runoff election held when Omar Njie ’13 won the Sophomore Class Council President election with 33.44 percent of the votes, only 8.09 percent more than the next candidate.

    The Election Committee added one additional campaigning rule to the runoff election this year: “candidates and supporters may not email mailing lists during this period.”

    “They’re allowed to campaign,” Njie said. “The only thing they’re not allowed to do is email panlists.”

  4. Election results contested

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    The results of Yale College Council presidential election are currently being contested, according to the YCC Elections Committee.

    John Gonzalez ’14 was declared the winner Friday night, taking 39.79 percent of the vote. Eric Eliasson ’14 came in second, with 30.73 percent of the vote. According to an elections packet distributed to candidates, a race goes to a runoff when the leading candidate receives less than 50 percent of the vote, and the margin separating the leader from the second-place candidate is smaller than 5 percent.

    After the election results were released, Eliasson said he wanted to double check the runoff stipulation in the YCC’s constitution. According to the YCC’s constitution, a candidate who receives less than 40 percent of the vote is the winner if he or she also receives 10 percent more votes than the second place candidate. Gonzalez received less than 40 percent of the vote, and his margin of victory over Eliasson was 9.06 percent.

    Eliasson said he contacted the Elections Committee “to get an opinion” on the matter. YCC Vice President Omar Njie said the Elections Committee is meeting today to discuss the rhetoric used in the YCC Constitution. Njie declined to comment about the discrepancy in election rules.

    “I wanted to be clear about the rules,” Eliasson said.

    Cristo Liautaud ’14 came in third place with 29.47 percent of the vote.

  5. Gonzalez ’14 elected YCC president

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    John Gonzalez ’14 won a three-way race for Yale College Council president on Friday, edging out Cristo Liautaud ’14 and Eric Eliasson ’14 to become Yale’s student government leader for the 2012-’13 academic year.

    Reached Friday evening after learning the results, Gonzalez said he feels “so very blessed” about his victory, and said he dedicates the win to “every person I met when I was campaigning.”

    “I’m ready to get the ball rolling,” he said.

    Other winners include:

    Vice President: Debby Abramov ’14

    Secretary: Leandro Leviste ’15

    Treasurer: Joey Yagoda ’14

    Events Director: Bryan Epps ’14

    But the elections aren’t over yet — the YCC will hold a runoff election on Monday for the position of UOFC chair, as the margin separating Aly Moore ’14 and Bobby Dresser ’14 was less than 5 percent.

  6. YCC elections get underway this week

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    Facebook profile pictures across campus are about to change as students prepare to head to the polls in advance of this year’s Yale College Council elections. Here are the candidates:

    President

    Cristo Liautaud ’14

    John Gonzalez ’14

    Eric Eliasson ’14

    Vice President

    Debby Abramov ’14

    Daryl Hok ’14

    Secretary

    Kyle Tramonte ’15

    Leandro Leviste ’15

    Treasurer

    Joseph Yagoda ’14

    Nathan Kohrman ’15

    Events Director

    Bryan Epps ’14

    Marissa Pettit ’14

    UOFC Chair

    Richard Harris ’15

    Aly Moore ’14

    Bobby Dresser ’14

    Junior Class Council President

    Caroline Smith ’14

    Anna Wang ’14

    Sophomore Class Council President

    Bechir-Auguste Pierre ’15

    Kadeem Yearwood ’15

    Patricia Okonta ’15

    Andrea Villena ’15

    Nancy Xia ’15

    CORRECTION: April 9, 2012

    An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Bechir-Auguste Pierre ’15.

  7. Summer storage expands to include lamps

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    In a Monday email, the Yale College Council announced that summer storage regulations have been amended to include one lamp per student.

    Last fall, administrators announced tighter storage restrictions that allowed students to store one couch per suite and one chair per student. After negotiating with the YCC, administrators revised the rules to include one bookshelf per student, as well.

    YCC President Brandon Levin ’13 said the YCC has been working for months on expanding the regulations. Levin said he is “thrilled that [their] persistence paid off.”

    “We’re very grateful to Dean Miller and Master Keil for helping to support the YCC throughout this process, and we also applaud and thank the many residential college councils that demonstrated support for these changes as well,” the YCC executive board wrote in the Monday email. “Together our show of student unity resulted in substantial institutional change!”

    The new regulations now only slightly differ from last years’ — students are still prohibited from storing a rug and two framed pictures in their suites.

  8. YCC offers backstage pass for best logo design

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    Remember last year’s Spring Fling? Remember when Third Eye Blind played “Jumper,” or when Lupe Fiasco kicked off (or, at least, contributed to) a campuswide push against investment banking? You don’t?

    Regardless, here’s some good news: the Yale College Council is offering a backstage pass to Spring Fling 2012 for the student who designs the best official logo for this year’s concert. The logo will be featured on all Spring Fling publicity and merchandise, and the winning student will get to meet the performers, which could include the likes of Matt & Kim and the Ying Yang Twins, which will surely result in a great Facebook default.

    Submissions are due Friday, Feb. 3 at 5 p.m. via email to the YCC.

  9. YCC launches promotional site

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    What has the Yale College Council done this year, anyway?

    In case the mid-year report released earlier this week by the Yale College Council left you feeling unsatisfied or underinformed, the YCC also launched a self-promotional website today that publicizes the group’s innumerable accomplishments by answering the age-old question, “What has the YCC done this year?”

    The website features a myriad of answers to the big question, such as “Collaborated with dining to provide you seven $7 meal combos that can be purchased with your lunch meal swipes” and “Marking the Yale College Council’s most transformative initiative in the realm of mental health, YCC and Yale Health collaborated on the Yale Mental Health Fellows initiative.” The website also prompts users to click a button with things like “I’m unimpressed,” “Big deal. What else?” and “I could do that in my sleep” that moves onto another substantial YCC achievement.

    “This year’s YCC has been very much focused on attainable goals for our student body, and we’ve had some new and important accomplishments this year that we wanted to share with everyone,” said Dan Stein ’14, the web developer who created the site, in a Tuesday email. “The site is a fun and funny complement to the mid-year report. It’s shopping period — why not have some fun?” (Stein is a Cross Campus contributing blogger and a staff reporter for the News.)

    The website is modeled off a similar site called “What the heck has Obama done so far?” that was created to quiet down President Barack Obama’s haters. So YCC haters, back off!

  10. YCC elections have technical difficulties

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    Yale College Council elections were taken offline shortly after opening Thursday morning due to technical errors.

    YCC President Brandon Levin ’13 said there was a glitch in the program that deleted some names off of the ballots. When students went to vote for their college’s representative, they only saw the names of those representatives who were in their class year, and not candidates from other class years. Levin said the problem is being addressed and elections should reopen around 7 p.m.

    Elections this week are for residential college representatives, and Freshman, Sophomore and Junior Class Council representatives.

  11. Student activities fee increases to $75

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    Updated 7:44 p.m. Elis will find a bit of a surprise when they look at their Yale account statement today: The optional student activities fee has been increased from $50 to $75 for the next school year.

    The Yale College Dean’s Office said in April that it was considering raising the fee, which provides about two-thirds of the YCC’s budget, in order to help the YCC balance its budget after University-wide cutbacks forced the Dean’s Office and the President’s Office to decrease their contributions to the organization. At the time, administrators indicated they were inclined to raise the fee but said no official decision would be made until the summer.

    It does not appear that students received any notification of the fee increase until it popped up on their account statements today. For at least the past two years, undergraduates have received an explanatory e-mail message from Student Financial Services at the time the fee was charged. The message provided details on how students could opt out of the fee if they so desired. (The option to opt out of the fee is still available on the Student Information Systems Web site.)

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