Meghan Mazella/The Ithacan Sophomore Adam Roth, left, and juniors Arthur Izzo, Kristen Boentgen and Justin Cole hold up junior Lawrence Mollicone. The group, the People’s Choice Party, is running for the 2003–2004 Student Government Association Executive Board. Meghan Mazella/The Ithacan Juniors Zeeshan Salahuddin, left, Megan Sullivan, Julie Zeldin and freshman Brian Dashew make up Vision, one of two parties competing for the 2003–2004 Student Government Association Executive Board. Junior Raquel Wright is not pictured.

It’s that time of the year — election time. Two parties have announced that they are seeking election to the 2003–2004 executive board of the Student Government Association.

The People’s Choice Party and the Vision Party will face off for the chance to shape SGA’s future. Juniors Larry Mollicone of the People’s Choice Party and Julie Zeldin of the Vision Party will compete for student body president.

People’s Choice Party also consists of juniors Kristen Boentgen, vice president of business and finance; Justin Cole, vice president of communications; Arthur Izzo, vice president of academics; and sophomore Adam Roth, vice president of campus affairs.

“We want to focus strictly on the students and the student government,” said Mollicone, who is a current SGA representative. “We also want to focus on an increased membership [in SGA]. Our party would like to increase the advertising and everything else that goes into recruitment and finding new reps — it is only with competition that you can truly be a student body representative.”

Izzo said another one of the party’s main focal points would be on academic dishonesty.

He also said People’s Choice would to attempt to change the timing for teacher evaluations. They recommend that evaluations be done halfway through the semester to reduce students’ biases caused by grades they receive. He said he believes the change would place more emphasis on what a teacher actually does for his or her students.

People’s Choice would also like to alter the way that funds are given out to various clubs and organizations. Boentgen said that rather than just handing out the money, she would like to have a follow-up process to see what the clubs actually did with the funding.

As part of the plan to increase student interest and participation in SGA, Cole would like to develop and maintain an in-depth Web site where students can interact and become more involved with the organization.

He said that since students spend so much time using the Internet, the idea makes perfect sense.

The Vision Party is composed of juniors Zeeshan Salahuddin, vice president of business and finance; Megan Sullivan, vice president of academics; Raquel Wright, vice president of campus affairs; and freshman Brian Dashew, vice president of communications.

The Vision Party hopes to be able to play a role in shaping issues, Zeldin said.

“We would be working closely with the administration to make sure that SGA’s work would be proactive as opposed to reactive,” said Zeldin, who currently serves as an SGA representative.

She said that under her leadership, SGA would strive to make sure that its decisions would influence future events, rather than just provide commentary on past events.

The party would also initiate a presidents’ roundtable in which the presidents of clubs or organizations would meet with the executive board at least once a month, Zeldin said.

Sullivan also said that an important part of Vision’s platform would be to continue with the plans for a diversity requirement initiated by this year’s executive board.

“We would like to work to create senior exit surveys about [their academic] programs, intending to get an understanding of how the program went for the students,” Sullivan said.

The Vision Party would also like to increase the communication between SGA and the rest of campus. Dashew, a current SGA representative, said that instead of students receiving a generic newsletter from SGA, they would receive more personalized newsletters from their specific representatives.

Salahuddin, who now serves as SGA webmaster, said he would like to work at building an online budget system, which would allow for easier access to the funds.

SGA elections will take place on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at polling places across campus.