Willie Marks is the current Treasurer, now candidate for President. The Banner spoke with him on 8 April during RAM, asking about his vision for Harriton and what new things he could bring to the school. He will be running against current Sergeant-at-arms, Pranav Pillai, in the general elections on Monday.

HB: Which Harriton teacher is your hero?

WM: I would say Mr. Occhiogrosso. First off, he’s an incredible teacher, I’ve learned so much from him in a relatively rigorous math course, but he’s also so fun when he does it. He’s a great guy, makes everyone laugh, gets off topic to an appropriate amount, whether you learn about the world outside of math, but still learn a lot.

HB: What is your favorite part of Harriton?

WM: The students, definitely. I love so much about Harriton, but I think that we have an incredible student body. I think that we have social groups to a certain extent, but can float in between them. To be able to talk to so many people is just incredible. There’s no rigidity in the social order which I’ve experienced. I think there’s so many nice kids and so many smart kids, who are very personable and I love that about our school.

HB: From your campaign video, you are running on your record as treasurer. Why did you choose to run on that record?

WM: Well, I’m running on a couple things. I thought that the two things that I could run on are experience and what I would like to do.

So, I’m running on my experience because, as Treasurer this year, I have experience just from the fact that I’m an officer, but also I have done a lot as treasurer. Last year, I ran on the promise that we’d have a school supplies station, and that’s something we have now. Is it well known? Not really, but its just a small change which hopefully, the students find, is for the better.

I’ve also expanded the influence of the cookie grant, which is a program that is designed to give money to clubs. We added it a couple of years ago, and then it kind of fizzled out and it wasn’t used. This year, I decided that we had to keep using it because it’s an awesome opportunity for clubs! We can fund start-up clubs, small clubs, and big clubs. We raise a lot of money and we should put it to work. It was originally designed for 1000 dollars, but at my request, we extended it to 2000 dollars. I think that’s a big step up.

The treasurer’s job for months leading up to Mr. Harriton is to sell ads to businesses. Last year, I believe around 1700 ads were sold, but this year, we worked really hard, used technology, I emailed so many businesses, and we close to doubled it. I think it was an about 85% increase on ad revenue, so we went up to about 3200 ads, which is a nice improvement.

HB: What does President do?

WM: The President is in charge of the Student’s Rights committee, the Technology committee (although that has, at least in the past year, been delegated to a co-chair), and there is a responsibility as a member of each and every committee. Technically, Ben Hewitt, our current President, is a member of Finance, Internal Planning, Communications – all of them. The President makes sure that everything moves forward in an appropriate way.

HB: How does your experience as Treasurer prepare you for the role of President, if elected?

WM: So, a big thing is leading, which I did. Especially the advertisements, because you have to organize people to get that moving forwards. Also, one of the biggest things we do is Mr. Harriton. This year we raised seventeen thousand dollars, which is a huge sum for a student organization. And this year, I went to a bunch of the practices. Just the week before, I was there until 10 PM. I pretty much had to leave, because my Junior Driver’s License expires at 11, not because of anything else. I understand how the show works, and the President is key in moving that forwards.

Also, I would say that my knowledge about how Student Council works will help me. The President has to oversee other officers, and having experienced being an officer this past year, I would be able to help lead and help the other officers. I’ve had experience running a committee already. It did a great job under my direction. I also worked closely with Ben on a lot of things, particularly around the time of Mr. Harriton.

HB: You said a lot about Mr. Harriton. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it not the responsibility of the Vice President to deal with Mr. Harriton and the Events Committee?

WM: That is his assigned topic, but it is not a one-person job. It’s a huge production. So, it is the Vice President’s job, but the President has push in it. Just because it is not his baby, it’s still definitely crucial to have a President who is involved to get the show moving. There is a lot of fluidity about things like Mr. Harriton. The President isn’t going to be writing out reimbursement forms, because that’s the Treasurer’s job, but for something as large as this, the President would help with honestly, any and every task. With so many moving parts, like concessions, videos, dances, talents, all these things have to be accounted for and everyone works together to do it.

HB: In your video, you spoke about the fact that you want to change the by-laws into a system where you have a Class Officers system. What would this mean?

WM: First off, I would like to preface this by saying that my ideas, my promises, can be promises that I can absolutely uphold. So, the main things I am running on are things that it has jurisdiction over. One of which is Student Council itself. So, I don’t want to have Class Officers, Class Presidents, Vice Presidents, Secretaries, Treasurers, Sergeant-at-arms, which is what LM has, but I want to have one or two, probably two, officers for each grade. All this hasn’t been entirely worked out, and it would have to be discussed, because the President doesn’t have the authority to just change the by-laws, they have to get it passed, which I am confident that I can do.

So, their these Class Officers’ main job would be to back their grade. Their job would be to hear any concerns that freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have about how the school is run. This would create a more direct line to whichever Student Council officers are elected next year.

HB: Why did you propose this idea?

WM: Personally, when I was a freshman, I did not understand how Student Council worked. I can tell you, if I had a concern, there’s no way as 9th grade Willie, I would have approached the 17-18 year old School President with my ideas, because it’s scary when you’re little. No matter how friendly or how great of a guy or girl they are, it’s hard to approach them. That essentially is the goal: to create a more direct line.

HB: Aren’t grades already represented in that Student Council is made up of people from all of the grades?

WM: Yes and no. The student council officers can represent themselves or their friends if they wish, but that’s not the way that it ends up working. The fact of the matter is, when people are in Student Council, it isn’t like real Congress, where their job is to back their constituents; their job is to help Student Council. The Class Officers’ main jobs would be to back their people.

In the past we’ve tried sending Google Forms to improve the school, but there hasn’t been the response that I think there would be if there was a more direct line.

HB: You also spoke about a Congress of Clubs. What would that entail?

WM: I would like to implement what I call a Congress of Clubs. This would essentially be a new club or organization. Each club or sports team would be invited to join and maybe have one or two delegates, and they would be part of this group effort. They would work together for big projects — like for the cookout, I think it would be nice if we had each club represented at a table, running something.

Another issue is fundraising. I find we have a ton of amazing clubs and we have opportunities to raise money or apply for the Cookie Grant, which I talked about earlier. But the problem is, when a lot of clubs are very small, they don’t have the voice that they should. So, with a Congress of Clubs, say that there are two clubs that have 10 or so members. Each on its own would not have the critical mass needed to sign out the Breakfast Table and to raise money. So, under a Congress of Clubs, you could facilitate interconnectivity to the point that clubs could pair up with maybe two, three, four other clubs and share the breakfast table responsibilities and the proceeds. It’s kind of like a coalition, which I think would be a big benefit and make Harriton’s resources, which are normally only applied to the bigger clubs, accessible and easy to use.

HB: Why isn’t it currently possible for clubs to sign out the Breakfast Table together or do any of these things together?

WM: Could they do it? Maybe. I know that it has not yet been done. So, the goal of this is to facilitate any interconnectivity. The point isn’t to create new opportunities, it’s facilitating opportunities which most clubs, I think, don’t even know they have. We sent out emails for clubs to join the Pep Rally, but only one did (shoutout to the Latin club!). But if there was a forum, and you got three club leaders there and one said ‘I’ll do that if you do it,’ more clubs might join. I don’t think most people want to march into the dark alone, they want to march into the dark with two other guys at their side. So a big point is to help the small and the big clubs to walk together toward a new goal.

HB: How would this fit into the current constitution?

WM: We don’t have a subset of Student Council which is charged with that right now. But it easily could be. The President would be chair of it and maybe the Class Officers could help out. The thing is, it would not be entirely run by Student Council. Student Council would have a seat in it and help run it, but the clubs would also run it — it is their Congress, not ours. the President of the United States doesn’t run the House of Representatives, it’s not how it works.

I know the Cookie Grant was very well publicized on the announcements, but unfortunately, announcements are not always listened to and it would just create a linear focus where everyone sees what is before them and goes on alone. So, we would set it up and kind of guide them along, maybe make a few changes here or there, but it’s not entirely our baby. We don’t tell them what to do.

HB: How would a Congress of Clubs improve on the current system of organizing?

WM: Each club would have a delegate or two. Its not like we’re proposing a bill to the House. It would essentially be another type of club, consisting of clubs. There would be an email list, which I think is the best way to disseminate information. There could be the occasional meeting, and I think that the big things is disseminating information, letting people know of the opportunities they have, and using technology to our advantage.

If I am elected, then the Congress of Clubs will be announced and an email will be sent out to each club, inviting them to join.

HB: What fruit best epitomizes you?

WM: The apple. It’s classic, it gets the job done, it’s shiny, it tastes good, and it thinks differently.