BSA elects officers for '07-'08 year

Members of the Black Student Alliance elected junior Simone Randolph president for the 2007-2008 academic year late Wednesday night.

Randolph, who served as the body's executive vice president this year, is a political science and Spanish major from Cleveland, Ohio. She said her goals for the year include work on raising the grades of black students, bringing more black faculty to the University and building on the Black Women's Initiative. She will also look outward, she said.

"I'm really, really interested in working more closely with [North Carolina] Central [University]," Randolph said. "A lot of work has been started on the creation of a Robertson-like program and I'm really interested in getting that piloted off the ground."

Serving as Randolph's second-in-command will be sophomore Vanecie Delva, who was selected to be executive vice president, also without opposition. She is a sophomore and served as BSA secretary this year.

Rounding out the officer positions, several others were elected without contest. Junior Andrew George will serve as treasurer; sophomore Ashley Banks and freshman Awa Nur will be public affairs and academic affairs chairs, respectively; and Ade Sawyer, a freshman, will serve as historian.

In other races, junior Stephanie McCalmon and freshman Cadene Russell edged out challengers to become social chair and outreach chair, respectively.

Delva said the organization had made strides in pursuit of its goal, "Strengthening the tradition of excellence," and she said she hopes the group will build on that progress during her term.

"I think this is going to be a great, great year, and there's two black women heading the organization," Delva said. "How cool is that?"