SPEC members elect College junior Todd as third president

College junior Anne Todd was elected the third president of the Social Planning and Events Committee last night, defeating Wharton junior Lincoln Singleton in the only contested race of the executive board elections. Todd, who served as SPEC secretary this year, will take over the position next month. "I am here 100 percent," Todd said after the meeting. "I'm available to every single person in the community as a whole . . . my time commitment is devoted to SPEC." Todd was excited about the coming year and said she plans to secure SPEC's future early in her term, stressing that students do not need to worry about the committee when its financial agreement with the University runs out next December. Todd said she plans to focus next year on developing SPEC's new Special Events Committee, a group devoted to bringing events to campus that do not fit under any other committee, such as hypnotists and comedians. And Todd said she plans to promote more co-sponsorships with other campus groups, publish an expanded newsletter, and work to involve new students in University activities as soon as they arrive on campus. The other executive board members elected last night are College junior Richard Greenberg as executive vice president, College sophomore Marni Sommer as vice president of membership, College sophomore Pilar Ramos as vice president of publicity and Engineering junior Maryellen Feehery as secretary. No one ran for treasurer, and SPEC members will hold another election next January. Todd defeated Singleton after both candidates gave three-minute speeches and answered 10 minutes of questions from SPEC and non-SPEC members in the room. SPEC members voted by secret ballot. Former Vice President of Publicity Singleton, who said he lost by a very slim margin, said he does not plan to continue working with SPEC in any capacity. He said he would not be effective without being on the executive board. "I do sort of feel that all the hard work I've done for SPEC over the last two years has gone down the drain," Singleton said. "But I can turn my energy to other pursuits." Singleton criticized the make-up of next year's board because it contains no non-Greek minorities. He compared Todd to current SPEC president Lisa Nass, saying that changes will be hard to bring about with "a Lisa prototype" at the helm. "During the questioning, one thing that helped Anne win was that she was very perky, while I tried to make my presentation very thorough and professional," Singleton added. "But that's a matter of personality and culture."

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