Officers Plan for Upcoming Year

Paymon Rouhanifard and Robert Albright, who were elected senior class president and vice president with 68.5 percent of the vote in Tuesday's runoff, said Wednesday that they are eager to begin fulfilling the goals set in their platform.

"It starts now, when we're juniors," Albright said.

Rouhanifard also expressed a desire to begin work immediately. "I'm really excited to get the ball rolling and get things going for a strong year," he said.

The main issue Rouhanifard and Albright's platform addressed was maintaining communication with members of the senior class.

"Our main job is to represent their voice and let them know what's a reality," Rouhanifard said. "We want to keep them informed at all times."

Rouhanifard also said he wants the members of the senior class to know that they can hold him and Albright accountable for all decisions made.

Albright said there will be many ways seniors can make their opinions heard next year, on topics such as the class gift and Commencement speaker selections. "We want a lot of seniors engaged in the process," he said.

Rouhanifard and Albright said they want to redefine the system of senior class marshals to establish continuity year after year and will be meeting with senior class faculty and alumni advisers in the next few days to brainstorm.

"We want to bring ideas to the table, cooperate with them and work efficiently with them to make these ideas a reality," Rouhanifard said, referring to the advisers.

Albright said the pair wants to spread the word to all seniors to solicit a diverse group of senior class marshal applicants.

Senior class marshals are responsible, among other duties, for organizing events and voicing the interests of seniors to the officers. "We want to get a great cross-section of people at UNC," Albright said. "The marshals will be the link between us and the students."

Rouhanifard and Albright also suggested that a "Salute the Seniors" benefit concert for charity, which was a main component of their platform, will be a high priority in the coming months.

"It's an idea we want to see come to fruition," Rouhanifard said.

The officers also have entertained the idea of incorporating some of the other candidates' platforms into their own.

"Chessa (Huff) and Kim (Washington) had some great ideas we'd like to talk about," Albright said.

He mentioned Huff and Washington's idea to increase graduation rates as something the teams could collaborate on in the future.

Albright also said he was impressed with the effort all the candidates put into the campaign and how they wanted to give back to UNC. "Everyone involved will still contribute in some way," Albright said. "We see this as a team job. It's not going to happen with just the two of us. We both know that there's a lot of work we have to get started on."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.