The student body elected Kate Hamilton ’13 for next year’s Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) chair this week in an MCSG election that was held earlier than usual. There was also an election held for the new Program Board (PB) chair, results of which were not available at press time.

Serving as Chair-Elects for the duration of the semester, Hamilton (formerly chair of the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC)) and the new Program Board chair will use this transition period to shadow their predecessors and learn the system.

“For PB and FAC, those are the two positions that need a little more introduction, a little more guidance,” Hamilton said. “I think it’s a really, really great idea that we’re doing these two elections early. I think it’ll make for a much smoother transition.”

Though two candidates ran for the PB position, Hamilton ran for FAC chair unopposed. She believes that this has more to do with the tasks demanded of the job than with a lack of student interest.

“I think this is not a job that people jump very eagerly for because it’s difficult,” Hamilton said. “You’re kind of the face of the good news when people get their event and it goes really great and they get all their budget. But, you know, people remember the budget cuts. So I think it’s a really difficult job and I’m not surprised that I [ran] unopposed.”

Nonetheless, Hamilton is eager to begin working with student orgs, especially those that may have lost some faith in MCSG after this semester’s wave of org budget cuts.

“I really want to have conversations with orgs, I really want it to be a dialogue and go to meetings if they want me, to have conversations,” she said. “If there are groups of cultural orgs or artistic orgs we can get together and have a conversation about who can partner with whom and how they want to talk about allocations and stuff, really just get involved with that so it’s a bit more personable and a more friendly relationship.”

Hamilton plans to get started on some of those conversations between now and the fall, when the new chairs will assume their positions on the Executive Board.

“Over the summer I hope to get in contact with some org leaders and start that conversation in the fall, maybe have a couple lunches or something and really dive into that,” Hamilton said.

Though she is coming from AAC, a completely different part of MCSG, Hamilton feels that with the help of current FAC chair Mac McCreary ’12 she will be ready to build on these relationships. She cites her previous experience in MCSG as good preparation for some tasks of the job.

“I feel like I have a little bit of background on the FAC and how it operates – not nearly as much as I will at the end of the semester and going forward – but we’ve been involved in some pretty substantial conversations and I’ve been a part of that,” Hamilton said. “In that role I’ve kind of developed a sense of what the FAC is.”