The Rattler (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Page: 3 of 28
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04.29.09
News
The Rattler 13
SGA election results causes student dissension
By Melody Mejia
Senior Staff Writer
New student body officers may
have been inaugurated earlier this
week, but the widely-contested
campaigns that produced them
have ended with students chal-
lenging the results. Recalling the
failed Bush v. Gore presidential
election of 2000 the student elec-
tions officials-so far without pub-
lic comment-disqualified the lead-
ing vice presidential candidate af-
ter she won more than 60 percent
of the vote.
In the meantime, opponents to
presidential winner Tania Ramirez
claimed she had overspent election
code finance limits by producing
campaign t-shirts at lower costs
across the border in Mexico, by-
passing Student Government As-
sociation (SGA) spending ceilings.
Ramirez denied the claim, saying
she was hardly the first to do so,
and her position was effectively
upheld by the elections committee,
which declared her the winner late
Thursday, April 23.
But that declaration came only
a week after candidates Gabriel
Hernandez and James Eades filed
that charge and others in a 21-
page affidavit against Ramirez, the
top vice presidential vote winner
Amanda Osuna, candidate Vincent
Astudillo and the SGA.
"I feel Tanya and I didn't do
anything wrong."
- Amanda Osuna, junior
Criminal justice major and
VP candidate
Hernandez and Eades cited
an array of violations of the elec-
tions code which they said harmed
their campaign. The irony is that
elections officials Thursday then
effectively eliminated both Her-
nandez and Osuna from their
election bids, then declared Eades
vice president-elect, after he polled
only 38 percent of the vote. They
did so without public comment.
Osuna said Sunday night that
Interim Dean of Students and SGA
advisor James Villareal told her
she had been disqualified for three
violations of the election code that
had nothing to do with the affida-
vit. Election authorities eliminated
Osuna as vice president because
she twice appeared in the Univer-
sity Center atrium, the site of vot-
ing, in violation of the campaign
code. Osuna maintains that she
had permission from student elec-
tion officials both times to enter the
atrium, but the student elections
panel held otherwise. Election offi-
cials who made that determination
could not be reached for comment,
but Osuna said the decision con-
fused her.
"Out of the [three years] I've
been here, I have never seen any-
one be disqualified for these rea-
sons," she said. "That's what
kills me about this whole thing,
I feel Tanya and I didn't do
anything wrong."
By Friday morning, April 24, a
challenge sprang up literally over-
night from Osuna supporters on
Facebook. They lashed out at SGA
authorities for failing to discuss
the matter publicly, and urged Fa-
cebook users to express their dis-
appointment to interim dean of
student James Villareal and to join
a protest they staged in the quad
Friday morning to add to a petition
supporting the election of Osuna.
Claudia Charbel, a junior ma-
joring in English-communications
arts, said Osuna supporters intend
to force a re-vote "so that those
who voted for Amanda can then
again vote for Amanda and show
their support and not just have six
people [the student elections court]
decide what 60 percent of the stu-
dent body already decided."
Charbel derided the student
elections committee for effectively
declaring Eades to be vice presi-
dent, with no public discussion
until the 5 p.m. Thursday e-mailed
declaration. That declaration, and
the failure to articulate its reasons,
forced challengers onto Facebook,
she said. The declaration of Eades's
win without mention of Osuna's
election victory amounted to "a
slap in the face," said Charbel.
"This is our first step," she
said. "Getting a petition and going
about from that. That's all we can
do for right now. I have everyone I
know trying."
Hernandez and Eades had al-
legedly reported an array of im-
proprieties on the part of their
opponents and SGA, from over-
spending on campaign materials,
to violating other sections of the
election code. Though the com-
plaint has been dismissed, whether
the affidavit has any merit remains
unclear, partly because student
elections officials and the student
body president James Escamia, re-
fused to discuss them.
Escamia said it's up to the stu-
dent elections committee to decide
whether to discuss their findings
publicly, and "as of now, there
hasn't been a consensus for that."
On the other hand, Escamia
acknowledged that the elections
code and the SGA constitution
need revision, apparently because
of issues arising from the election.
"I certainly do feel that the in-
formation in our constitution has
left loopholes that determined the
election code needs to be revisited
for next semester," said Escamia.
At the same time, Villareal said
that the elimination of Osuna was
decided by student election judges
for reasons other than those cited
in the affidavit, reasons which Vil-
lareal, too, would not disclose.
Student lands job on Wall Street despite recession
By Allison Hernandez
Staff Writer
As the economy sags and many stay in
school to avoid job-hunting in a recession,
one student survived the demise of former
investment house Lehman Brothers to land
a job in financial services, thanks partly to a
group that supports students of color.
Senior Ricky Diaz, who majors in corpo-
rate finance and risk management / finan-
cial services, scored a prime internship this
past summer. From early June to late July
of 2008, Diaz worked at Lehman Brothers,
the now defunct major Wall Street com-
pany. The internship led to a job offer that
he received before even walking the stage
for commencement.
The organization that played a large role
in Diaz's internship is Sponsors for Educa-
tional Opportunity (SEO), a nonprofit or-
ganization that recruits and trains minor-
ity college students for summer internships
that can result in full-time jobs in large firms
specializing in banking and corporate law.
Diaz served his internship at Leh-
man Brothers with fellow interns from Ivy
League schools such as Princeton, Harvard
and Yale- competition which Diaz said made
him want to work harder.
"SEO finds talent where the banks don't
look for talent," said Diaz. "So if I would've
lost my chance with SEO, then I would have
lost my chance because these firms don't
look for people in smaller schools."
Diaz said because his prior work experi-
ence had been only doing physical labor and
working in retail, SEO provided him with
intensive training before he began his in-
ternship. Diaz was given 72 hours of train-
ing online and then Lehman Brothers flew
him to New York. He worked in Manhattan
at Lehman Brothers' headquarters in Times
Square, where he received another week of
more extensive training.
That week of training ranged from the ba-
sics to more complicated finance, Diaz said.
When training ended, because he was not
licensed to trade, he gained experience by
listening in on trade executions and learned
about everyday transactions between sellers
and buyers.
Despite the training he received, Diaz
still experienced a sense of excitement when
he officially began.
"When I first witnessed the high-pressure
environment with Lehman Brothers and my
own co-workers losing millions of dollars,
I started having doubts myself," said Diaz.
"But all that changed when I felt that I could
really work hard and succeed in this field."
A week after his eight-week internship
was up, Diaz was offered a position with Le-
hman Brothers. But when the company went
bankrupt on Sept. 15, the job went, too.
"I felt like I was on top of my game when
I got the offer, but when Lehman Brothers
went bankrupt, I was scared for a couple of
weeks-I was on cloud nine for a while, then
I was back to reality."
Then, Barclays Capital reviewed Lehman
Brothers' original 33 interns, narrowed them
down more and then offered jobs to a select
few. Diaz starts work by the end of June as
a capital markets first-year trading analyst
and will then rotate around different trad-
ing desks until he finds a fit. He said he will
begin with a yearly salary of $70,000 with a
$15,000 relocation bonus and the potential
for a year-end bonus.
Even as Diaz saw his own hard work pay
off, he recalls seeing the hard work of other
interns go unnoticed or overlooked, and he
realizes how fortunate he is to have had an
internship opportunity that led to a job.
Out of 92 interns at Lehman Brothers,
three were SEO-sponsored. From that group
of 92 interns, 33 were subsequently offered
a job, including two of the three SEO-
sponsored interns.
Diaz could have waited to go into the
field as an inexperienced college graduate,
but he said that applying for the internship
and having that extra experience made him
more confident in this unstable economy.
Diaz said the SEO internship program
opened doors and afforded him opportuni-
ties to advance in banking.
"People from Texas don't always think
they can make it on Wall Street, but I try and
recruit and let people know that there is an
opportunity out there," said Diaz. "Since
SEO opened the door for me, I want to con-
tinue to open doors for others."
Diaz is enjoying his last month of college
life before he flies to London on June 28 to
train at Barclays Capital headquarters for a
month. He will then go back to Wall Street
to begin work in the trading world.
Pleased about his future, Diaz feels he
has found the secrets to his success.
"All it really takes to succeed is to have
great personal skills and to be willing to
learn and help yourself," he said. "I never
thought I'd be living in the Big Apple, but I
love the city."
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St. Mary's University (San Antonio, Tex.). The Rattler (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 11, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 29, 2009, newspaper, April 29, 2009; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1048293/m1/3/: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting St. Mary's University Louis J. Blume Library.