The YCC secretary is not a glamorous position. The secretary sends campus-wide emails, takes minutes at meetings and manages the YCC’s website. The work is repetitive but crucial to the functioning of the YCC. Leandro Leviste ’15 understands this: He calls the secretary “the workhorse of the YCC.”

Both Leviste and Kyle Tramonte ’15 are full of ideas with the potential to better life at Yale. From dining hall reforms to expansion of gender-neutral housing, both candidates’ platforms are thorough. But Leviste’s commitment to a grueling job and his emphasis on keeping the student body connected make him best suited for the duties of the YCC secretary.

Tramonte understands that an email’s visual appeal goes a long way towards winning readership. He would provide students with information in a comprehensive and snazzy fashion. He has a good grasp of YCC policies beyond the immediate duties of the secretary, and he would ensure that the council’s driving vision does not just come from the president.

Both candidates worked on the Freshman Class Council this year, and both promise to be accessible to their constituents. Both want to fix the take-out meal system in the dining halls and the glut of information and invitations in students’ inboxes. Leviste won us over, however, with his clear record of technological innovation in collaboration with student start-ups.

Leviste has demonstrated his drive to connect Yalies to information. He created YaleWiki and Freshman Lunch and compiled a summer directory of international students. On each of those projects, he approached students who had ideas he knew he could expand. The best advances in communication may come from students unaffiliated with the YCC, and Leviste wants to work with student programmers to streamline web innovations on a revamped YCC website. He knows that the YCC needs a coder on staff if it is to keep up with Yale in the 21st century.

We worry that Leviste might get buried in his tech enterprises and lose sight of the larger picture. We hope he involves other students as he has in his work on YaleWiki, and we hope his ambition does not interfere with his ability to delegate. But his vision of individually tailored communication is admirable, and we have confidence in his abilities as the communications point man of the YCC.

YALE DAILY NEWS