At Monday's Student Association Assembly meeting, Greg Wyffles beat incumbent Jennifer Tuttle for the position of speaker of the Assembly, after four rounds of elimination-style voting.
According to the SA constitution, the candidate who receives a majority of the votes is proclaimed the winner of the election. If no candidate receives a majority, the person who received the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and the assembly votes again.
Because the first three vote-counts yielded no majority, a fourth election was waged between Wyffles and Tuttle.
As speaker, Wyffles said he hopes to help reclaim some of the responsibilities of the Assembly that have been put into the hands of the SA executive board, such as increasing student involvement in SA clubs.
"A lot of the Assembly's duties have been pushed onto (SA President) Chris Oliver and as speaker, I hope to take some of them off of Chris, so he can focus on presidential duties," said Wyffles.
All five candidates - Wyffles, Tuttle, Matt Albright, Gregory Haynes and Jason Rivera - were given two minutes each to explain to the Assembly what they planned to accomplish as speaker and how they would achieve these goals.
All of the candidates said there is low student involvement with clubs and events on campus, largely due to lack of advertising. Wyffles proposed mailing the SA newsletter, Visions, to students' homes.
"With the mass mailing, (Visions) will be directly given to the students, rather than having to choose and pick up the Visions magazine, say in a hallway or in a class room," he said.
After the two minutes were up, the Assembly had three minutes to ask each candidate questions and get feedback on the issues the Assembly thought needed to be addressed.
Albright said students need what SA is capable of doing for UB students.
"A governing body is only as powerful as its recognition," said Albright.
Tuttle said that although there is always a need for progress, she felt "many improvements" were made within the assembly during her terms as speaker last year.
Wyffles said that he would ensure that issues regarding various departments and organizations would receive equal representation within the Assembly.
"I wanted to run for speaker because I've noticed, when I sat on the Assembly, that a lot of things that got done only had to deal with the assembly," he said.
After the final vote was received and Wyffles was determined to be the winner, SA Vice President Jennifer Brace, who was acting as speaker of the Assembly until the election, turned the meeting over to Wyffles, who opened the floor to nominations for the SA Rules Committee.
Ten students ran for the six available positions on the committee. The winners were: Albright, Rivera, Haynes, John Lee Jr., Bruce Sherman and Kim Chocolaad.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
