Jason Mann

It’s official; Chris Daugaard and Eric Hanson will be leading the student body for the next year.

Daugaard and Hanson defeated Becca Lutz and Brandon Bausch for Students’ Association President and Vice-president 1,037 votes to 748. All candidates for a position on the senate were elected to a seat. The new administration and senators will be sworn in at the meeting on March 10 and will officially take over SA March 17, during spring break.

Daugaard says his first thought after he found out he and Hanson won the election was, “Wow, this is huge.”

Daugaard was pleased by the increase of voters from last year’s elections.

“I was really happy that we more than doubled student turnout, but I don’t think that we can ever be satisfied with the turnout,” says Daugaard.

Daugaard and Hanson say they have already picked up a few projects from the current SA President Alex Brown and Vice-President Chris Schaefer. They also say they have scheduled meetings with members of the university administration, the SDSU Foundation and campus groups. Daugaard says the first goals he wants to tackle are related to technology and Web site development.

Interviews for the SA executive board-administrative assistant, state and local chair and finance chair-are being held this week. Members of the board will be sworn in March 10 with the elected senate.

There are eight at-large seats available. Applications will be in the SA office on March 11 and due back on March 28. At-large petitions are similar to those of elected senators in that 50 signatures are required, but students from all nine colleges can sign any at-large petition. The SA Board of Directors, made up of one elected representative from each college, will then review the applications and ask candidates to be interviewed by the newly elected senate. At-large senators will be sworn in at the beginning of April.