GW Hatchet Blogs - blogs.gwhatchet.com

The Student Association senate-elect confirmed eight students to serve on the executive cabinet next year.

Junior Tim Little, sophomores Dan Curran and Fred Girard, freshmen Shawn Dejbaksh, Jason Lifton, Chas Pressner and Tabisa Walwema, and graduate student J.P. Simon will all serve as vice presidents for SA President-elect Vishal Aswani.

“I’m beyond ecstatic right now,” said Aswani, a junior.

He added the senate confirmations were “just a matter of reaffirming the decisions we made as a group.”

Little will be the vice president for academic affairs for the third year in a row. Freshmen Shawn Dejbaksh and Tabisa Walwema will serve as the vice presidents for student activities and public affairs respectively.

Simon forfeited his position in next year’s senate to be the VP for graduate student policy.

Curran, the current VP of student activities, will serve as VP for undergraduate student policy next year. Girard will be the VP for legislative and judicial affairs. Freshmen Chas Pressner and Jason Lifton will serve as VP’s for financial affairs and community affairs respectively.

Aswani, SA Executive Vice President-elect Kyle Boyer, Senator-elect Nick Polk (U-At Large) and Aswani’s staff interviewed more than 50 applicants before making the executive cabinet appointments.

“Having sat through these interviews and (having) met these people, I am confident that they will exceed our expectations, give 110 percent to GW, and are here because they want to make a change and help others,” said Polk, a freshman.

Virtually every senator voted in favor of approving Aswani’s cabinet appointees except for SA Senator-elect Logan Dobson (CCAS-U), who often abstained or voted against the appointments.

Dobson, a freshman, said he refused to approve appointees who held beliefs that conflicted with his own or if he felt his vote was a conflict of interest.

“In terms of confirmations, I abstained from two of my fraternity brothers because I believe that is a conflict of interest between me and them,” Dobson said.

Though Dobson voted against many of the cabinet appointees, he said he doesn’t feel that it will hurt his reputation among the other senators.

“The senators who would disagree with my votes are ones that are going to propose bills in the future that I would most likely disagree with as well, so I don’t think they will be looking for my support anyway,” Dobson said.

This was the last senate-elect meeting of this school year. The senate-elect will be sworn in May 1 and will hold their first official senate meeting in the fall.