Alex Williams
Jordan Foster elected as new student body president
|George Mason University’s Student Elections & Disputes Commission announced on April 4 that Jordan Foster, a rising senior, was elected as the next student body president for the 2013-2014 academic year.
Samantha Wettasinghe, also a rising senior, was elected as student body vice president as part of a combined ticket.
The pair won with 796 votes over write-in candidates Donald Garrett and David Noyes, who received 32 votes.
OPINION: Free speech zones and the struggle for freedom of expression
|It is election season, and many students are asking: Why vote?
In 2008, voter turnout for 18-24 year olds reached a high of 49 percent, and many analysts predict this number to return to a more lackadaisical norm for 2012. While colleges are often considered the bastions of liberal arts and free speech, the condensing of First Amendment rights to a “free speech zone” on campus have hindered, rather than encouraged, civic engagement.
OPINION: Business interests, academia and the fiscal realities of contemporary education
|Academia and business, those star-crossed lovers, locked horns in two major educational crises this past year. First, the University of Virginia was thrown into turmoil when their Board of Visitors suddenly and brazenly fired and subsequently rehired the university president who, up to that point, had served less than two years. The second catastrophe came this past week in Chicago when negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and the mayor dissolved into a full-on strike by the teachers, leaving nearly 400,000 students out of school.
Williams, Foster elected student body president and vice-president
|Alex Williams and Jordan Foster win the elections for student body president and vice-president with 933 votes. Full results for the executive and senate races are posted within.