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September 06, 2004 Vol 75, no. 2F
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POLITICAL ENGINEERING:
Not only did Leybovich win the ASUC presidency, but he helped
galvanize the engineering vote. A record four engineers were elected
to senate.
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Apple Engineering
party cleans up at the polls with four engineers elected to ASUC
During last spring’s
historic election, the Apple Engineering party blew the trend of politically
apathetic engineers out of the water. Not only did engineers come out
and vote, but they elected a record number of engineers to office. Engineering
physics senior Misha Leybovich won his bid for ASUC president, and three
of his four running mates for senate – engineering undeclared junior
Chris Abad, ME sophomore Igor Tregub, and MSE sophomore Peter Chung
– were also elected.
Having such a large concentration of engineers in student government
is unprecedented and has led Leybovich to dub the 2004-2005 school year
the “year of the engineer.” He says this political shift in
the student senate will translate into positive changes and strong representation
for the engineering community.
Of the seven engineering candidates who ran in 2003, only the incumbent
senator, Leybovich, was elected.
Lackluster voter turnout and general political apathy among engineers
were to blame. But, it didn’t discourage Leybovich from assembling
this year’s winning Apple Engineering Party and trying again. The
2004 team, Abad, Chung, Tregub and ME/MSE junior Grace Hsu campaigned
vigorously and cohesively. While she came very close, Hsu was the only
candidate not elected.
Leybovich says he owes his victory to the long hours he put into campaigning.
He dedicated nine hours a day before spring break and a mind-boggling
22 hours a day after break.
“I did all my homework for the coming month during spring break
so I could devote more time to campaigning,” he says.
Leybovich is the first engineer to be elected president in at least
a decade and the only one to ride into office on the coattails of such
an engineering sweep. Leybovich credits teamwork for the outstanding
results.
“This year was different than last year because we ran as a team.
Instead of splitting the vote, we reached out to the engineering constituency
and got them to the polls,” he says.
Abad also praised the team effort. “What brought engineers to the
polls this year was the engineering community, not our individual labors.We
sold ourselves as Apple Engineering, not unique candidates.This spirit
of camaraderie among the engineering candidates will continue into the
ASUC senate next year.”
With two years of ASUC senatorial experience under his belt, Leybovich’s
personal priority is to train the new senators how to best serve the
engineering community.
His other priorities include putting on a big, monthly campus event
to bring students together. He hopes this will create a smaller campus
feel and sense of community. Leybovich also wants to host a series of
town hall meetings to find out what engineers need and plans on recruiting
engineers as he searches for students to staff the ASUC.
Leybovich’s dedication to becoming ASUC president can be summed
up by one stoic anecdote.
“First week of the campaign I fractured my foot. That didn’t
stop me from walking 15 hours a day with a smile,” he says.
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