Twitchell, elected spring 2001, set out to put “students first” and in retrospect said, “I really liked working with the students the most … working closely with different clubs and organizations [was great].”

Twitchell was happy to see that she had made a difference in the lives of so many people when club and organization leaders came up to her within the past several weeks and offered her praise. However, she was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of day-to-day interaction with students. “I didn’t realize that I’d be so involved,” she said.

Twitchell originally set out to “have a strong focus on clubs and organizations through the Executive Board.” In the early days of her term Twitchell knew that there was room for improvement and she really wanted “to do an effective job in budgeting … in terms of the building, my goal was to help make this space more comfortable for students,” she added.

Twitchell was very eager to make the Union a 24-hour facility as well as to post more pictures in order to encourage creativity. The next step for the new PU and E-Board is to take a serious look at the services and hours offered in the Union.

Ament says, “Right now we are looking at [24-hour days] six days a week … things are starting to roll into a 24-hour Union, but right now we have not been able to hire environmental services.”

Ament does say that if there is a large enough demand for food services then that will be a factor in determining how the budget is divided up amongst the diverse needs.

An excited Ament says he has both short-term and long-term goals for his position. Primarily, Ament seeks “to appoint a Board [and] hopes to have full [membership] by the end of the year.”

In finding applicants and getting the word out to the community, Ament intends to “use all the resources we have [including] the current E-Board, the IFC, Panhel and The Poly.”

Ament insists that he will be a more hands-on PU, through getting out on campus and meeting and forcing interaction with students “by being very approachable … communication skills are essential.” He wants students to know the his face and those of his Executive Board in order for students to feel close to them.

Ament spoke specifically of the Senate’s 20 days and 20 nights of student feedback and plans to “keep that process going year in and year out … it is very important to get [both] senators and E-Board [members] out and talking to people.”

Twitchell’s impression of Ament is that “[he] will be very dedicated to the position and will continue to focus on clubs and organizations … he realizes the value of that relationship and above and beyond the budget.”

In the year to come Ament says, “I think we’re definitely going to run into budget issues [due to] the declining enrollment and the up and coming Division I status of one the women sports teams ... [it might come to the point of there being] an inflation in the activity fee or a cut in programs.” But Ament insists that his E-Board will be very efficient in the budgeting process.

Shadeequa Miller, exiting E-board member, echoed budgeting problems citing Statler and Waldorf, RPI’s the new literary publication, as Ament’s “first big issue.” She continued to say that as PU, Twitchell was against permitting the magazine to put out their first issue because she felt that Statler and Waldorf would work against them and the administration instead of working with them to promote the things that student government is doing. Additionally, there is currently a lack of funds in the budget for continual success.