New UNC Student Body President Will Leimenstoll takes office

Following a student body president election hurt by modest voter turnout, Will Leimenstoll took office Tuesday with a fix in mind.

Leimenstoll said in an interview that he will address voter apathy by encouraging students who wouldn’t otherwise be in student government to join in.

“A goal of ours is to make student government something people want to be a part of,” he said.

“If we make it a culture of people wanting to be involved then it will address the apathy concerns.”

At the inauguration of the 2012-2013 executive and legislative branches Tuesday in the Great Hall, Leimenstoll emphasized UNC’s role as “an institution with a heart.”

His first priorities, he said, will be encouraging students to vote in the North Carolina primary in May and working with administrators to launch money.unc.edu, a website that students could use to access information about financial aid.

“We’re very optimistic that the website will be launched,” he said.

“It’s important those resources are in one place.”

Student Body Secretary Nikita Shamdasani, who was also inaugurated Tuesday, said she will work to encourage public and private outreach to get students involved.

“I want to encourage the small community that I feel,” she said.

Among the issues that the new administration will face, Leimenstoll said tuition increases remain a concern, but he will face different challenges than outgoing Student Body President Mary Cooper.

“I’m really lucky that the University is generally on the same side as students in the issue that financial aid should partly be funded by tuition,” he said.

“With Mary it was a tight walk with what the University was saying and what students were saying.”

Michael Bertucci, who was inaugurated as president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, said student officers should appeal their concerns to the state and federal government.

“It’s important for us to get an consistent voice out there,” Bertucci said.

“As a public institution, these state and federal governments are having a tremendous impact on our student life. I think we can change some things.”

Leimenstoll said he admires Cooper for accomplishing her major platform points, but he hopes to do more.

“Student government doesn’t have to, and should not, just be about accomplishing platform goals,” he said.

But with Cooper accomplishing 95 percent of her platform goals, Leimenstoll said he still hopes to do even better with his own platform.

“I know our chief of staff said he hopes we can accomplish 96 percent.”

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