UPDATED: Sept. 24, 1:07 a.m.

Surrounded by supporters on the Quad, Boris Gresely announced his candidacy for Student Association president on Monday morning.

He made the announcement in front Hendricks Chapel at about 10:45 a.m.

Gresely, who is the first candidate to enter the race, said despite the small turnout, he wasn’t disappointed. Ivan Rosales, who also announced his candidacy for SA president later that morning, was in attendance.

“This is just the beginning of the campaign,” Gresely said.

Gresely, a junior political science and public policy major, served in SA for three semesters under Neal Casey and Dylan Lustig’s administrations.

While in SA, Gresely was a part of the Academic Affairs, Student Engagement and AdOp committees. He said he decided to run for president because he has plenty of ideas and overall experience.

Gresely said his campaign will run behind the slogan, “Alliance for Change.” His campaign plan consists of three different components: reform, reconnect and redirect.

If elected, the goal of this plan is to keep Gresely and other members of SA accountable.

“It’s illustrating to the people that from day one, you can keep me accountable. You can say, ‘Hey Boris, you said you were going to do A and you didn’t. What’s going on?’ It’s a way for people to keep me accountable, and also to make me honest.”

Gresely said if elected, he would implement a three-branch system within SA. The current structure doesn’t make sense, he said, because “the people who are new in SA get lost right away.”

To increase transparency within the organization, Gresely said he wants to create an internal finance board. The board would specifically focus on SA’s budget and how decisions are made.

“I want to create an internal finance board so that the assembly feels empowered,” he said.

He also hopes to establish a leadership development committee, which will focus on SA members and how effective they are toward the student body.

“When people that go inside SA, they think that they’re leaders now and their potential has been peaked. I don’t think that’s correct,” he said. “I think SA is a resource for students, and that’s where I’m directing it.”

If organization members share the ideology that SA is a resource for students, he said, others on campus will want to work with it.

The organization is currently too “SA-centric,” he said, where people see “SA within SA” and don’t see it from the outside.

Gresely said he hopes to change SA from being a virtual representation to being a direct representation. He plans to propose a bill that will give each home college representative a set of students. This representative will have contact information for all of the students he or she represents.

“This campus is really big and there are resources. And there are leaders at SA that know. But unfortunately, how do you connect to them? You can’t because there’s no means to it.”

He said this will allow assembly members to be accountable to represent their constituents.

—Asst. Copy Editor Maggie Cregan contributed reporting to this article.

 

mhnewman@syr.edu

Published on September 23, 2013 at 11:31 am

Contact Meredith: mhnewman@syr.edu | @MerNewman93