Senior Faith Dearborn has taken over as Student Alliance President following the removal of the previous President from office.

Dearborn was elected Vice President in Spring 2015 and was a member of Student Alliance her sophomore year. As part of Student Alliance procedure, she accepted the position of President following Andrew Scarafile’s removal.

According to Dearborn, if she had not accepted the position, then elections for President would have been held within the current Student Alliance board.

“I think it was necessary for me to take over considering the fact that there were only two other seniors besides me on the board,” Dearborn said. “So if I hadn’t taken it, then it most likely would’ve been a junior.”

In the past, the President of Student Alliance has traditionally been a senior that has served multiple years on the board, though Dearborn has only served one year on the board, and is now President. She said while she is happy to have the job, it’s different for her because of her not being on board her junior year.

“I know it’s weird for some on the board for someone to be in charge who wasn’t on the board last year, so if I mess up at all, they always correct me,” Dearborn said.

The transition from Vice President to President was challenging for both herself and the board.

“During the time when I was transitioning from Vice President to President, it was difficult for the board because they were unsure of who to follow,” Dearborn said. “I would sometimes be the only officer in the room and they wouldn’t listen to me.”

Billy Palivos, senior and Treasurer of Student Alliance agreed with Dearborn. As part of the board, he often found situations in the Student Alliance room awkward because nobody was addressing the fact that the previous president was no longer in the room.

‘Getting back to the student body is our biggest goal this year’

“There was an elephant in the room because we all noticed that he was not showing up,” Palivos said. “Our sponsors didn’t say anything either, and no one told us when or if he was going to return.”

This all changed when Dearborn was officially named President. Her focus changed from specified duties of Vice President, such as running committee meetings and organizing constituencies, to listening to students and creating new projects for Student Alliance.

“As President, it’s super easy for me to ask people what they want to be changed and I can actually start the project and delegate it,” Dearborn said.

Shortly after Dearborn became President, elections for Vice President began and junior Erica Diaz was elected the new Vice President of Student Alliance. In the time it took to run elections and select a new Vice President, as well as transition Dearborn into the role of President, much of the time for work was lost.

“It was hard for the Vice President because she had to start right away with no formal introduction and we were already behind,” Dearborn said. “The timing could not have been worse.”

Dearborn also said her and Diaz are working hard to establish a better constituency program with adviseries.

Constituencies are when Student Alliance representatives visit adviseries to give them an update on Student Alliance activities, as well as ask if anything needs to change in the school.

Some of the new projects Student Alliance is working on includes a top-secret Public Service Announcement (PSA) for the student body and a club database to catalogue all clubs that exist at New Trier.

“The club database is really cool because you can go online and fill out information based on what you’re interested in and it will tell you what clubs might interest you and what days they meet,” Dearborn said.

According to Dearborn, the main goal of Student Alliance this year is increasing public relations within the student body.

This initiative includes Student Alliance advisery forums, which have been reduced from once a month to once a quarter in an effort to have a bigger turnout.

“Getting back to the student body is our biggest goal this year and through our amazing board I think we can do that,” Dearborn said.