Echo Article

We are Patrick Boland and Cary Finnegan, and we are running for SGA President and Vice President. We are running because SGA has not done a good job of addressing students' needs in the past two years. We aim to change that by building a stronger community at Colby. We are the most experienced ticket running we know how to get all of our ideas done and we would immediately start working on all of these issues as soon as we are elected. Unfortunately, there is no way we can cover all of our ideas in this article, so check out our website.

Patrick is currently a second year dorm president in East Quad and serves on multiple committees, including the Student Security Advisory Committee. He serves on the Executive Board for both the Goldfarb Center and WMHB, and drives the Jitney. Cary is currently the HR of Pe-Wi and previously served as its dorm president for three semesters. She is a member of the Academic Affairs Committee, Student Athletics Advisory Committee, Judicial Board, and is a proud member of Colby Women's Lacrosse.

Here is how we build a stronger community:

Transportation

  • We want to put the Jitney on a loop into central points in town from Pulver during the day and put it on call after 7 p.m., shuttling students anywhere they want. We will continue the airport shuttle set up this year and work to create a more flexible airport shuttle by using Zip Cars. This airport shuttle would supplement the current one by adding in cars that leave at various points during the day and only cost a little bit more than using a bus. We will also work to get Zip Cars on campus and start a bicycle co-op, as Bates does.

Improving The Social Environment

  • We will work to get rid of SGA's debt which has cut funding to all clubs and activities - we will meet with administrators and demand that our funding be restored, as done with SPB. This is only hurting students for the mistakes of a few who are no longer on campus. We want to open up communication between SGA and clubs and organizations. We will set up monthly meetings with bigger organizations and clubs and a meeting each semester to find out what we can do to help. We will publicize sports and work to get more buses to close away games. We also want to get cardio equipment on campus and work to allow club and I-Play athletes access to trainers. We want to continue promoting Colby-Waterville relations and completely revamp Party Right through promoting safer drinking habits.

Changing SGA

  • SGA can do so much, and this year it has not. We aim to change that by first appointing experienced and qualified Executive Board members so that SGA runs effectively and smoothly. If need be, we promise to fire any member of SGA not performing well. And, in order to address all of our platform issues, we will require each Executive Board member to implement one area of our proposals. We want to make SGA more visible by having a bi-weekly Echo article, holding office hours every day (M-TH) in the evenings, and requiring dorm presidents to program twice per semester. We will assist them by taking half our stipends to create an event fund for dorm presidents, class representatives and clubs.

We promise to take only half our stipends and put the rest to events for the students and also to take rooms in different dorms to preserve better picks for all. We also promise to be accessible and visible to ensure that each of our issues, our opponentsŐ issues and the needs of the students are all addressed. Please vote for Boland/Finnegan for SGA President/Vice President on March 16, 2008. Visit our website for more a more detailed platform. Contact us at pmboland@colby.edu and cbfinneg@colby.edu.