Elections for the Student
Government Association (SGA) executive
board, which includes the president, executive
vice president (executive VP), finance board
chair, vice president (VP) of academic affairs,
VP of communications, and VP of student
life began this week The debates for each of
these positions were held on Friday, April 1,
from 12:30 pm to 3:00 pm in Center Court,
moderated by TechNews EditoreineChief
Anoopa Sundararajanl The debates were in the
form of a set of questions that were formulated
by Sundararajan with input from the SGA
election committee and online submissions
from the student body Each section was
followed by the opportunity for the audience
to ask questions The video recordings of
the debate can be found on SGA’s YouTube
channel

The first debate was for the
presidential candidates, Irewole Akande,
Ha.mze Leo Sukkar, Jerry Sha, and Khadijah
Nesbitt, who started off with their brief
introductionsl The first question asked what
qualifications each of the candidates held to
represent the entire student body’s thoughts
and opinions to university administration and
the Board of Trustees

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SGA executive board candidates share views at debate ahead of elections

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Nesbitt started off, explaining that
her experience as a member of the President’s
Student Advisory Council (PSAC) allowed
her to meet with President Cra.mb regularly
to discuss student concerns, and having been
to the Board of Trustees before, she is familiar
with the process She also said that her friendly
and open personality as well as her skills speak
to her ability to interact well with the breadth
of the student body in order to be adequately
considerate to their needs

Sukkar went next, saying that he
had become well acquainted with speaking to
and interacting with university administration
in his current position as VP of student life,
and with students through his involvement in
the Students Speak Survey Outside of SGA,
he is involved in the campus community as a
Resident Advisor (RA) meaning that he has
access to a variety of student opinions and is
professionally trained to listen, reflect on, and
act on student concerns in a proactive way

Akande started by highlighting his
involvement ina variety of student organization
of differing sizes on campus over his time
here He has also been an active participant
in intramural sports and has played varsity
soccer He tied these together saying that his
curious nature has been one that always led
him to ask important questions about how we
can better our community, regardless of what

part of the community he was involved in

Sha explained that although he
does not have the most student organization
involvement, only being actively involved in
two student organizations, what makes him
qualified is his awareness of the multitude
of student concerns that he hears regularly
He finished by saying that he believes that he
offers a much different perspective than the
other candidates that would be beneficial to
the position

To Sha, it was pointed out that in
his candidate packet, to the question asking
what SGA was doing well and what he would
try to continue or improve on, he wrote “no
comment?’ When asked to explain or if he
would like to amend his answer, he said that he
didn’t feel qualified at that point to answer that
question, and that the first thing he would do
in his position would be to figure out what is
going on with the SGA agenda and work from
there

To Nesbitt, it was pointed out that
her candidate packet indicated that she had
never been a part of SGA, and that some
students may be concerned that this would
keep her from fulfilling her duties It was asked
how familiar she is with SGA’s workings and
how she would address these apprehensions of
her In response, she spoke to her interactions
with SGA through RHA partnerships as well

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as discussions with the current president and
executive VP of SGA She added that over
that time she had become well aware of its
workings, and would continue to strive to
learn

It was pointed out to Akande that in
his candidate packet, he outlined a few methods
meant to strengthen SGA’s relationship with
individual student organizations, but infact,
some of those methods are currently practiced
by SGA He was asked if he felt that his
perceived disconnect from what SGA is doing
would affect his ability to bring about effective
change, or if it would help himl

He answered by stating that his
ultimate goal in his plan is to make SGA work
for the good of the student body, as outlined in
his packet, but what needs to be done before
that can happen is SGA being truly informed
of the student experience and having an idea
of the greater “student atmosphere? '

Sukkar was asked how he would
counter any bias he may have of SGA due to his
prolonged experience in it and how he would
interact with those that have generally negative
attitudes towards the organization

Continued on Page 2

HT NECA students do energy audit at IIT Perspectives school

Julie Chandler
Emamouel Milanov
Justin Brinkerhoff
Maribel Nieves
TECH NEWS WRITERS

The National Electrical Contractors
Association (NECA) IIT student chapter will
be competing in this year’s 2016 Green Energy
Challenge In this competition, the chapter
is required to conduct an energy audit of
Perspectives/IIT Math and Science Academy
The team evaluated the school and prepared
a proposal that lists out both short and long
term recommendations to help the school
become more energy aware and efficient It
was required to pick two rooms in the building
on opposite sides for the assessment, while also
exposing the students of the school to energy
savings

The team leader, Justin Brinkerhoff,
is an electrical engineer The coileader is

Ema.nouel Milanov, who is a mechanical
engineering major The energy analysis leader
is Brian O’Kane, who is studying industrial
technology and management The solar energy
team was led by Sinou Xu, who is an electrical
engineering major The finance analysis leader
is Andrea Rivera, an architecture major The
team is sponsored by the Chicago and Cook
County NECA Chapter

With the cooperation of the Program
Manager for the after school engineer scholar’s
program, Jana Elion, the team was able to
meet with several school engineers, students,
and Mr Faik, Perspectives’ Environmental
Sciences teacher On one of the site trips we
were able to talk to some of the students who
were in Mr Faik’s after school class, in which
we explained how to use Lumen metersl These
meters were then used by the students as an
educational tool by helping the team gather
data They recorded the following: 621 laptops
and 32 desktops computers in the building, 38
of which are left on constantly There are 612

T8 fluorescent light fixtures along with 26 high
pressure sodium lights on the outside of the
building They also recorded measurements
that were needed for the assessment tools to
work properly in analyzing the school’s needs
The team went on several site
visits and noticed several issues that could
be addressed in order to save energy, such
as (but not limited to): the type of windows,
HVAC system, and the condition of the
building exterior as well as the current use of
lighting throughout the school The current
heating system allows some rooms to gain
more heat than others This causes the rooms
that are overheating to require single unit air
conditioners to be installed and operating
Perspectives’ Building Engineer,
Daryl Jones, provided the team access to
the roof to evaluate various fans and the
current solar array The team observed that
the solar panel (which was donated in 2009)
was connected to an inverter with nominal
output of 1800W The electrical tieein routes

to a circuit breaker panel which contains
incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs
Due to the capacity of the system and the light
bulbs on the connected panel, the installation
is inadequate for energy reductionl

After doing some research, it
was concluded that the windows should be
replaced to reduce the amount of heat loss
The emergency doors should be replaced in
order to reduce the gaps between the doors
and frames along with the sweeps underneath
to keep the heat in the building For the HVAC
systems it was recommended that a BAS/BIM
system should be installed so that the engineers
have more control of the system throughout
the building In turn, these recommendations
could help regulate heating and cooling better,
which would show in both the comfort of the
occupants and the amount that would be saved
for the school budget

Photo courtesy anIT NECA student chapter