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Incumbent re-elected
Third presidency for Wylie; Bateman wins VP spot in close call
By Jessie Yale
jyale@mscd.edu

Metro’s Student Government Assembly held its elections last week, and the student body voted to re-elect President Jack Wylie for the third year in a row and also to officially elect Vice President Andrew Bateman, who has been serving in an interim capacity this semester.

Wylie defeated Melinda McClain 459 votes to 332 votes, and Bateman barely edged out Hashim Coates 439 votes to 419 votes, according to preliminary results made available by the SGA’s election commission.

The SGA has several things planned next year, but Bateman said the unexpected issues are usually the most important.

“Most of the important things SGA does are not planned but rather brought to our attention shortly before we make our decision. This being said, I do have some goals for the next year,” Bateman said.

Along with his duties as the chair of the Student Affairs Board – the panel that allocates revenue collected from the student affairs fee – Bateman will also be presenting a proposal to Metro’s Board of Trustees that could help lower student fees for more than 70 percent of students and increase revenue for various programs.

“There is some resistance from the board. It may not pass because of lack of hard data about how students use the different student services,” Bateman said. “If it doesn’t pass I am already working on devices that will collect the needed data to back up the proposal so that I can present it again next year.”

Bateman is also going to work out some problems with the SGA’s constitution.

“This will be our third year on this constitution, and there are still flaws in the system that need to be worked out,” he said.

Wylie and Bateman will work together to develop the newly formed statewide student organization Associated Students of Colorado.

“This is a collection of student leaders from various colleges and universities whose purpose will be to lobby the state legislature to secure more funding for higher education in Colorado,” Bateman said.

Bateman said he is looking forward to working with the SGA to increase awareness of what the assembly accomplishes so that more students will come to the SGA with ideas, concerns and suggestions.

Along with the president, vice president, student trustee and senators being elected, amendments to the SGA’s bylaws were also voted on and approved.

“The first (amendment) was to remove a passage of the constitution that required us to have at least three senators who are first-year or sophomore students on the senate at all times, something we have no control over and were in perpetual violation of,” Bateman said. “The second was to push the deadline for certified election results back to the first business day of May, with the stipulation that the election commission may delay it further by a vote if they believe it is necessary.”