Well Harriton, you have cast your votes. Next year’s Student Council officers have been chosen: Aaron Lazar, President; Lindsay Barrison, Vice President; Dan Liu, Treasurer; Ben Hewitt, Secretary; Aliza Berger, Sergeant-at-Arms.
On Thursday, May 9, the candidates made one last valiant attempt to convince the student body of their ability to lead our school. The audience of juniors, sophomores, and freshman listened closely as each candidate gave a two-minute speech.
As each candidate took the podium, one thing became clear. While in previous years candidates spoke seriously about their prospective courses of action, it seems that Dhruv Pillai’s rapping skills and Kai Chang’s subtle jokes had inspired many of this years candidates to also utilize humor in their speeches. Whether making fun of their own name or cartwheeling across the stage, they were certainly entertaining the audience.
The manner in which speeches were presented also seemed to be more innovative this year. Lindsay Barrison showed a Prezi presentation, while Kat Pisani spoke in the form of a poem. And since Aaron Lazar had to miss the assembly due to the district competition for tennis, a pre-recorded version of his presidential speech was shown on the projector screen.
After the assembly was over and students rushed to their buses, an email was sent to each student’s Harriton email with a link to the online ballots. This is the first year that voting has been online, and despite some original backlash from the candidates, it seems to have been an expedient method. Paper was conserved through the use of paper ballots, voter turnout reached about 75%, and Student Council was able to quickly tally the results in time for a 2:40 PM announcement on Friday (after voting had closed at 1:30).
So what is next for the new officer team? Aaron Lazar, newly elected President, comments, “It was a hard campaign trail and I am certainly humbled by the support Harriton showed me in the ballots.” He says that he has plans to, “begin a new event that will draw Harritonians together like at Mr. Harriton […] and showcase the talents of Harriton students.”
This year’s officers have left big shoes to fill for next year’s team. Nevertheless, the elected students appear to be extremely qualified for the job, and will surely lead this school to reach new heights.
