With her noteworthy experience in College Council (CC) and emphasis on incorporating diverse ideas, Alyssa Weinstein has outlined several initiatives that would strengthen CC internally and externally. The Wheel confidently endorses Weinstein as the best candidate for CC President.
Weinstein’s platform includes initiatives that would make CC more accountable, such as increasing use of its Standards Board to make sure members are accomplishing what they set out to do, as well as ideas to improve the College experience such as an expanded scholarship for students with financial need who take an unpaid internship.
During the past year, she has taken action to make ideas such as the Online Pathway for University Students (OPUS) Waitlist become realities. More importantly, she aims to take these initiatives to the next level. Her platform includes linking OPUS with the Course Atlas to make course registration more efficient, and she aims to improve the Class Forum as well. We believe that the Class Forum could be a useful and important tool — but only if CC expands and increases marketing of the Forum significantly. Weinstein recognizes that the Forum needs some serious work. Additionally, her emphasis on improving the Club Liason System, which pairs CC members with individual student clubs as an accountability measure and resource, showcases her focus on excellence.
CC is, at its core, a budgeting organization, and it is one that has historically had considerable issues with managing finances. While Weinstein’s opponent, Goldy Tenreiro-Braschi, emphasized the budget much more intensely than Weinstein did, we believe Weinstein’s work with fixing CC’s budget this year has been promising and will allow CC to focus on other issues in the future. However, as CC has little financial record or memory to work with, Weinstein should continue to focus on CC’s budget if elected, as its historical mismanagement means further attention is needed to ensure the budget runs smoothly for years to come. We also hope that Weinstein will take note of Tenreiro-Braschi’s general concern for CC’s internal processes, where accountability is a major concern. While Weinstein hopes to encourage use of the Standards Board, perhaps more direct and mandatory usage is necessary.
Overall, we are hopeful that Weinstein will make a strong and effective CC President, continuing to turn around the crisis-filled historical legacy of the organization and making it a body that truly serves the College.
The above represents the majority opinion of the Endorsements Committee.
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