College/Year: Calhoun ’04

Hometown: New Orleans, La.

Major: biomedical engineering

Jen Piro ’04 is known around campus as the secretary candidate with red, orange and yellow extensions in her hair. Playing off her last name, which means fire, Piro said, “no issue is too hot to handle.”

Piro hopes to tackle several important issues as YCC secretary: medical reform, financial aid reform and student voice.

“We have one of the top medical schools a block away, and we don’t use it,” said Piro, whose hometown doctor won’t allow her to return to Undergraduate Health Services after they failed to detect her thyroid problem. Piro said UHS is inefficient and understaffed, which she hopes to change.

Piro also hopes Yale will reform financial aid, saying decisions about aid rewards should be made just as individually as offers of admission.

She also hopes to improve communication between administrators and students.

“[Administrators] think they know what we want and try to do things in our best interests, but they never ask us,” she said.

Piro has experience as both a Freshman Class Council vice chair and communications chair as well as a YCC representative.

Because of this background, Piro said she is qualified to serve as YCC’s secretary and hopes to initiate an electronic newsletter to keep students in touch with the council’s issues.

“A lot of people only know what YCC is doing if we pass something really huge,” she said.

— Alexis Wolff