Will Leimenstoll to be next UNC student body president

Will Leimenstoll will be the 2012-2013 UNC student body president.

Photo by Eric Pait / reesenews

By Alex Barinka

Feb. 21, 2012 9:49 pm

Will Leimenstoll, an environmental science and geography double major, won the student body president runoff election with 62.7 percent of the vote.

Winner’s reaction:

[youtube width="500" height="380"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKYrzSjOIus[/youtube]

By Caitlin Yaniec / Carolina Week

About the next 2012-2013 student body president:

1. Describe yourself in a tweet (140 characters):

I’m a hard-working, genuine, optimistic guy. There’s nothing I love more about N.C. than this University and Cookout’s Cajun French fries.

2. What is one specific initiative you think you can actually accomplish?

Every idea in our platform was developed with feasibility in mind, but one idea that we’re really excited about is the development of a website: money.unc.edu that would bring together all the financial resources Carolina has to offer.

This would include financial literacy information from the Office of Scholarships & Student Aid, application information for the emergency fund, a grant database geared towards undergraduate students, the Student Enrichment Fund and a list of merit-based scholarships. Having these resources and others all together in one easily accessible online location would make it easier for students who need these resources to find them.

3. What is the one biggest obstacle the University currently faces?

The biggest obstacle facing UNC-Chapel Hill is maintaining its wonderful balance between academic excellence and accessibility amid budget cuts and tuition increases. The current budget deficit must not be used as an excuse to fundamentally alter the ‘state-supported’ tuition model currently followed by UNC. In order to protect our state-supported budget we must advocate for the university system in Raleigh and build a network of allies from across the state.

In addition to reaching out to students and other student governments, we will also work with governments and chambers of commerce from all cities and towns that host UNC-system schools because these are allies of the university system that we have not even begun working with yet.

4. How should the University cope with funding cuts?

The University should cope with funding cuts by becoming more efficient, engaging students in the lobbying process and advocating for a sunset clause at the General Assembly in Raleigh. With this clause, if all other efforts fail, we will accept declining state appropriations to the university in the short term but only until state tax revenue has returned to a predetermined amount.

Once that predetermined tax revenue level has been reached, the Sunset Clause is invoked, which requires that state appropriations must return to a stated percentage of UNC’s budget. This will ensure that UNC remains affordable and maintains its status as a premier public university in the long run.

5. If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?