Below are Pipe Dream’s endorsements for the Student Association executive board’s elections. Vote Wednesday and Thursday — if you live on campus, vote in your dining hall, and if you live off campus, vote in either the Old or New University Union buildings.

PRESIDENT

Mike Schiffman

“Student apathy is a bunch of crap,” Schiffman said in his endorsement interview, and we couldn’t agree more. His platform involves expanding relations between the SA and the general student body, as well as those between the SA and the local community. He wants to build on the Town Hall meetings started by Matt Schneider, and would continue the push for advertising on Off Campus College buses to help solve their budget crisis.

But Schiffman will have to solidify his ideas for improving campus and should consult with SA veterans for guidance. He should use the summer to do research and set achievable goals for himself. Carefully choosing a chief of staff would be a smart move.

Sorry, Al Rosenthal, but you’re better off being a mover and a shaker in the Student Assembly than you are as president. And the Assembly needs you to be constantly digging up dirt on the administration and others in power. (We don’t, by the way, appreciate you using our endorsement last year in your posters; it’s downright shady.)

Vote Schiffman.

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Chris Powell

Chris Powell is the clear choice for Executive Vice President. He’s all about changing the “white tower” in-club atmosphere that he says pervades the SA’s executive board, and we like it. His platform includes more effectively managing student-group space (some groups that don’t even really exist anymore, he says, have offices to themselves). Powell wants to make the office of the EVP more accessible to everyone. Incumbent and competitor Dave Belsky (of “Crave the Dave” fame) has tried and failed to do that: his “Yo EVP, what can you do for me?” program is as asinine as its name suggests.

Belsky’s ideas of making the SA more streamlined is a noble one, but it involves starting from the ground up and probably paralyzing the organization for a semester or more — and it doesn’t seem to be very well thought-out. There’s a big difference between renaming the Assembly the “Student Senate” and creating an organic body that empowers students while still effectively carrying out its day-to-day operations.

Powell also advocates for a stronger separation of powers within the SA, saying the EVP wields too much discretionary power. We agree. Although we don’t want funds to be locked up in bureaucracy as often tends to happen, there’s just too much money floating around — your money — for one official to wield at his discretion. The machinery of checks and balances is there to prevent random hiring binges, wanton abuses of power and institutional graft.

Finally, the rumors flying of Belsky’s possible financial impropriety — and his tendency to use the word “multis” to talk about people of color and their associated student groups — make it clear that he’s gotta go, and that Chris Powell is the right man for the job.

ACADEMIC VICE PRESIDENT

Abstain

Both the candidates, Rebecca Kaufman and Graham Kates, are too involved with this paper for us to be able to write an endorsement. Kaufman wrote for Pipe Dream last year, and Kates currently compiles briefs and writes an opinion column. So we’ll tell you a little about both of them.

Kaufman said her office is overlooked, and wants to increase its exposure. She also plans to “institute new ideas that this campus has never seen, like a liberal arts fair”; she hopes to help create more majors, a medical-school fair and a booklet to help students easily access internships. She wants to increase her office’s involvement with University advisers.

Kates is focused on changing BU’s “ridiculous” add/drop deadlines, along with increasing the “accessibility of courses” and working to lower textbook costs. Kates added that during finals week, Night Owls should be open all night. He wants to diversify the graduate school fairs, too.

Talk to these candidates, find out who you like best and vote your conscience.

FINANCIAL VICE PRESIDENT

Richard Marmolejos

Richard Marmolejos is the only candidate for the job of Financial Vice President. His two years of experience as the treasurer of the Latin American Student Union have certainly given him a decent amount of preparation, but we wish he was pursuing a major (or career) with more of an emphasis on finance.

We’re a little concerned that Marmolejos’ seemingly easygoing character and lack of financial education will allow others within the SA — both elected reps and full-time employees — to get the best of him. We hope, sir, that you have the spine to stand up to the other strong personalities with whom you’ll surely be sharing an office.

That being said, we like Marmolejos’ promise of availability. Current FVP Michael Zablow has extremely limited office hours, some of which only take place “when he feels like it” (so says the sign on his office door). Marmolejos has pledged to be in the office practically “all day,” which is of great value to student group treasurers who only have their own limited time to deal with SA financial bureaucracy.

Best of luck, Richard. If you keep anything in mind, make it this: student groups should always come first.

VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMING

Kevin Ranegan

What set Ranegan apart from the other candidates was his emphasis on coordinating with student groups to increase the diversity of programming at BU. His ideal approach to solving the perennial problem of getting student groups more involved in his office is as lucid as it is practical: let student groups come to him. He’s seeing the future of his office by making the VPUP more of an enabler and cosponsor of group events, and less a unilateral concerts czar.

An added benefit of close cooperation with student groups is a wider variety of acts — bands, theater, speakers, poets and more — that genuinely reflect “University programming.” Big concerts can and should always be a staple of BU’s entertainment, but having frequent, well-publicized, well-funded events is what’s going to truly help dissipate the general apathy for which this campus is known.

His plans also jive with those of our choice for vice president for multicultural affairs (see below).

VICE PRESIDENT FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

Jesse Nathaniel Reed

Incumbent Jesse Nathaniel Reed is the clear choice for vice president for multicultural affairs. Despite his having taken the office mid-Fall 2005 after the scumbag departure of Ju-Sun Lee for greener pastures, Reed appears to have networked extensively — and successfully — with Binghamton’s entire multicultural apparatus, and has made a name for himself with his dapper dress, articulate ways and his willingness to get out there and make himself seen constantly.

“Mr. Reed,” as he calls himself (and the personality cult that’s developed around him follows suit) has enough of a following to get just about anyone onboard with his plans. And we like his plans, too: he wants to work with the University Planning Board, the organization that the VPUP heads and that brings entertainment to campus, to get the message of multiculturalism out to everyone. He also wants to use all of campus media — including this paper — to diversify the way Bearcats think about multiculturalism, and Lord knows we’re all for it.