Candidate for PBHA President May Run Unopposed

Though five students have been nominated to run for Phillips Brooks House Association President in tomorrow night’s elections, it appears probable that current PBHA programming co-chair Katilin S. L. Koga ’11 will run unopposed for the position.

Of the current nominees, only Koga has confirmed her intentions to seek the presidency to The Crimson and has submitted a “position paper,” a document in which a candidate outlines his or her vision for PBHA.

If elected, Koga said she hopes to focus on improving the sense of unity across PBHA’s 85 programs.

“PBHA is a really divided organization in a lot of ways, just because people serve so many different communities and provide so many different services,” Koga said. “Having more people in dialogue with one another is a big vision of mine.”

The other four nominees—Karla A. Reyes ’11, Christopher J. Loney ’11, Abigail S. Brown ’11, and Terry T. Ding ’11—all confirmed to The Crimson early this week that they would not be seeking the presidency.

PBHA elections are difficult to predict with certainty, however, because further nominations can be accepted from the floor on the night of the elections.

Current PBHA President Richard S. Kelley ’10 said it is “relatively uncommon” to see students interested in high-level executive positions fail to announce their intentions and submit a position paper ahead of the election.

“At least in my three years, I haven’t seen anyone run for President who hasn’t put a position paper up earlier,” Kelley said.

This year’s elections will include a number of significant changes in voting procedure, following last year’s heavily contested vote, in which Kelley was named President only after a recount of the ballots.

Current PBHA Summer Program Group Officer Jessica G. Ranucci ’10, who was involved in the reform process, said the changes would both update election procedures and make them more resistant to bias by including stricter conflict-of-interest laws.

One of the major reforms will be a switch to instant-runoff voting, the method currently utilized by the Undergraduate Council, which involves ranking candidates in order of preference.

This will replace the old system that held runoff elections until one candidate captured a majority of the votes.

“We did everything we could to try to make it fair and impartial,” Ranucci said.

—Staff writer Evan T.R. Rosenman can be reached at erosenm@fas.harvard.