President

Nicolas Feltman

Just so y’all know, I’m imagining you all in your underwear to make this easier on me. Except Jacob Pflug. He’s wearing a leotard. How embarrassing to be the only one in a leotard. Someone missed the memo.

So hi, everyone. My name’s Nicolas Feltman. Most people call me Nico. I’m a junior CompSci slash CAAM major.

So how did I come to decide to run for this position? If you’d have asked me the day before my O-Week whether I would some day run to be the president of this college I knew so little about, I’d have said “no no, that’s not me.” In those days I simply didn’t have confidence: not in myself, not in others. I was dishonest about who I was, and worse I was judgmental of others. Coming to Rice, I expected to be a face in the crowd, a number in a spreadsheet. I thought that becoming “someone” was a tough task and that to lead was to sell out. But you know what? I was wrong. From the moment I drove into Will Rice and Cassie Moore looked in the car window and “Oh, it’s Nicolas, right” I knew something was now different. I was more than an entry in a gradebook, more than a ticket at a football game, more than a pump of a keg. And as I pulled into a parking space at 9 AM on that first day of O-Week, I somehow knew the place I would be sleeping that night was more than a dorm.

So I guess what we all want to know is what I’ve been up to since the first day of O-Week. Well my first two years, I stuck to organizations external to Will Rice, especially the student association, which is a huge part of the president’s responsibilities. From the start of my freshman year in the SA, I was one of three Will Rice new student representatives, working on projects like the whole Todd Graham, University of Aslut t-shirts I’m sure you’ve seen, and an intercollegiate picnic with Jones which I think was well enjoyed. I also joined RTV5 as a programmer but quickly became a regular amongst the group. I also like to think I had a pretty instrumental role in starting that gem of Will Rice culture known as Talk of the Snations. My sophomore year, I became Student Life Committee head in the SA, which was my first taste of leadership. In that role, I oversaw several more intercollegiate picnics and started a door-to-door polling campaign, with the philosophy in mind that every student deserves to be engaged. Back in RTV5 I became public relations manager, where I organized several events in addition to publicizing our totally awesome lineup of shows.

Now of course, I wasn’t by any stretch ignoring Will Rice during these first two years. I did things like host real-time games of mafia and do Willy-Week jacks and GoCrossCampus, and all that. But it wasn’t until my junior year that I took an actual position within the college. This year I have served as the Legacy divisional chair, which is why I have the staff and get a vote at Diet. As Legacy chair, I’ve gotten a better sense of what it is to lead: when to delegate, when to assist; when to be gentle, when to be forceful. And as a voter in Diet, I’ve striven to see issues from every point of view, to include every Will Ricer. This year I’ve also served on the Newer Dorm advisory committee, interacting directly with university administration, making sure they put students first.

Back on the SA side of things, I decided not to take a position in the Student Association Senate this year. Despite this, I still not only attend the weekly meetings, but I set up a camera and broadcast the meetings over RTV5, because I believe it’s important for everyone to have access to their government. Also, fun fact about Nico: I have attended more SA senate meetings than anyone else in this college. Yes, anyone.

And during all that I’ve managed to keep a pretty busy class schedule with the result being that I get to coast along my senior year, so no distractions there. Plus I got this fancy new phone that does my email and such.

Now what I really want you to notice with all this is that my experience, which is a mix of internal to Will Rice and external to Will Rice with heaping doses of leadership is exactly what the President does! The training wheels are off and I know how to ride this thing. And it goes without saying that I’ve got enough of the Myth-Power-Value for two Presidents.

But, if before I finish this speech a meteorite strikes me down, I will go knowing that I had a pretty good run and I put plenty into this college. But my experience isn’t everyone’s. There are some here who do feel like they are just a face in the crowd, like they’ve slipped through the cracks. My presidency will be for them. The pain train does not leave the station unless all are aboard. So I want everything in this college to be the best it can be. I want the best parties, and the best plays. The most victorious sports teams and the highest GPAs. The most involved associates, and the most spirited freshmen. I want to take sweep to a whole new level.

Thanks.

Alexandra Espinoza

Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for coming and for making the long trip from McMurtry. I am very excited for all of us to come back here next year.

I stand before you as a candidate for the Will Rice presidency, a position that requires an enormous amount of responsibility. As laid out by the constitution, these responsibilities include:

• Establishing an executive agenda for the college

• Leading Diet meetings at Will Rice and executing the policies decided at Diet and

• Being the official representative of the college to the administration, Rice University and to the SA

Because of my conversations with our current president, Kyle Clark, and last year’s president, Rahul Agrawal, I have been given great insight into what the president’s life is truly like, and I know that the duties of the president extend beyond what’s written in the constitution.

The president is an ambassador from Will Rice to the greater Rice University, and vice versa, and I believe that my various experiences here at Rice prepare me for this role.

As a sophomore I served as the Rice Programs Council representative to Will Rice. In much of the same way that a president is a liaison between the administration and Will Rice, as the RPC rep I was the liaison between RPC and Will Rice, constantly updating our college with RPC news and events, even if that meant making multiple announcements every single day during lunch. My experiences with RPC have given me a greater perspective of how Will Rice fits into a larger Rice organization.

Last year I was also head of the Will Rice Culturals committee, planning and organizing on and off-campus events. Through my dedication to Culturals, I helped the program grow in both members and activities, and with that I ensured that Culturals received a larger budget this year.

Currently, I am serving as the Programs Chair, where I oversee six committees: Culturals, Food, Elections, Theater, Programs, and co-heading the Spirit committee. As the chair I make sure the committees stay within their budgets, and I offer support, advice, and I encourage creativity and new ideas. My experiences with heading a committee and then my position as chair have provided me with great insight into the inner workings of Will Rice, how to be a better team player, delegate responsibilities, and get as many people involved in decisions that affect our Will Rice community.

I have also been an O-Week advisor my sophomore and junior years. I advised at Will Rice my sophomore year and this year I co-advised at Brown College, which gave me good insight into the inner workings of a different college. This experience has inspired new ideas and identified areas that can be enhanced to make Will Rice even more superior to all the rest.

Finally, since freshman year, I’ve played almost all of the sports offered, including biking for Beer Bike last year, helping Will Rice to its 4th sweep, and also helping Will Rice win its first powderpuff championship.

What I have learned from all of these experiences and many others is the importance of time management. I’ve actively participated in many college and campus-wide activities while having a 10-hour-per-week part time job for the second year now. Because of this, I have learned how to be more efficient while still being as productiveve in all of my duties and responsibilities.

All of this brings me back to the role of the president. Being president is a 24-7 job. It is building a strong relationship with those that care most about Will Rice. This includes the masters, RAs, our College Coordinator, the EC, and all of the members of Will Rice College. Additionally, it is important to build good relationships with those that make the decisions that affect Rice and all of the colleges, people like Dean Forman and President Leebron, and I believe I am very well suited to take on this responsibility to make sure Will Rice’s voice is heard.

I am running for Will Rice President because I have goals and a vision for our community. This year, with living at McMurtry, we’ve come across some challenges, with the changing dynamics of our community, integrating our wonderful freshman class into Will Rice away from our natural home, and dealing with building issues that we hope will not follow us back next year at Newer Dorm. We have dealt with these challenges very well and next year during our transition back to our own home, we may face new challenges like re-integrating the rising sophomore class into a just-Will Ricers-College, and welcoming a new freshman class in a newer setting. I am very excited to be part of next year’s community and re-establish the spirit of the phoenix back on the South side.

My overarching goal for Will Rice for next year is to engage more people in the activities and decision-making of Will Rice. Yes, Will Rice has a leadership structure but Will Rice is comprised of 350 terrific people, individuals that all care and have great ideas for Will Rice, and I will do my best to particularly encourage the freshmen and sophomores next year to get as involved as much as possible, as they will be the future leaders of Will Rice one day.

Since matriculation I’ve been very passionate and dedicated to Will Rice. I believe that my experiences as RPC Rep, O-week advisor, Culturals’ head, and especially Programs Chair have given me a taste of the organization and dedication necessary to be a successful President. It would be a great privilege and honor to serve as your president next year.

Thank you.

O-Week Coordinators

Vice-President

Secretary

Chief Justice

Treasurer

website progress

We’ve made a lot of progress on the site, but what we still lack most is what has been our ongoing struggle: CONTENT. The site has seen a big increase in content this year, mostly due to collaborations with the Historics Committee. But, it has proven very difficult to get the college to shift to a paradigm where everyone contributes to keeping the site informative and up-to-date.

We’ve made things pretty easy to search and edit, and we’re continuing to develop these features. (see “Current Projects” on the Technology Committee page.

Nico has been one of the biggest supporters of our wiki concept for the site, so we’re confident that his administration can finish what we’ve started.

webmaster changeover

Nico already has folk(s) in mind to steward the website, but ideally we want to keep moving to a model where everybody is the webmaster (the wiki concept). So we’ll give admin access to everyone Nico appoints, but we want to keep pushing the message to the college that they should all take part in building the content of the site.

listserv access

The secretaries, Kyle, Nico, and the VPs have unrestricted access to all the listservs. Messages from most others get held for moderation, and the secretaries can allow those messages to post.

• ROG: I’m working on publishing the how-to of setting all that up.
• ROG: Also, everything is ready to go as far into the future as next year’s freshman class.

Secretary listserv workflow

• ROG: Eric Reichlin (sp?) still has control over the old secretary listserv software. We have a clone of it, but I haven’t been able to get it running on our server quite yet. Look for that to be resolved this month, though…

Secretary email (wrcsec@)

We submitted a request to IT to change the recipients of the secretary email:

The new Will Rice executive council took office last night. We need to change the wrcsec@rice.edu email account to reflect this changeover.

Currently, that address forwards to Jessi Scully and Ben Bahorich.

We need to change it to forward mail to the new secretaries, Shan McDonell and Valerie Le: Valerie.H.Le@rice.edu, shan.mcdonell@rice.edu

You are welcome to contact our coordinator, Joyce Courtois (jcourtois@rice.edu) to confirm/authorize this request.

thanks,
Michael Rog
Will Rice Technology Chair