The National Pan-Hellenic Council elected seven students to make up its next executive board last night.
Representatives of each of the University’s six active historically black fraternities and sororities elected third-year College student Isaac Bawuah as president and third-year Engineering student Jaleesa Boykin as executive vice president. Third-year Commerce student Ugonna Akah was elected administrative vice president, while third-year Engineering student Amber Young was named treasurer.
Rounding out the next executive board are third-year College student Yemisi Olusada as secretary, second-year College student Monica Anderson as Inter-Greek Council female chair and second-year Engineering student Ian McClenny as IGC male chair.
The Council hopes to tackle a variety of different challenges during the upcoming year, board members said, and current Council President and fourth-year College student Sabrina Mendez said she is certain that the new board will follow through and address the issues.
“I’m very confident of the incoming exec board,” Mendez said. “I believe they are in good hands with Isaac. As he said in his speech, this past year was very much a rebuilding year for us to restore the bylaws and make sure that everything was working inside the Council so next year, hopefully, he’ll take it off and sort of make sure that we’re out and known in the community.”
Mendez said black fraternities and sororities at the University were previously under the Black Fraternal Council, an organization exclusive to the University, and only joined the NPHC in 2005. Since then, the Council has been working to get in line with the national organization’s bylaws and “know what we are and what guidelines we had to follow.”
Mendez said now that intricacies within the University organization have been settled, “we’re definitely ready to move forward and function within the U.Va. community.”
Many candidates focused on addressing Council’s visibility or perceived lack of visibility within the University community. Newly-elected Baykin proposed an NPHC week to raise awareness about the Council on Grounds.
“I don’t think [the NHPC has] been seen at all other than by people who want to be in the organizations,” she said. “Other people in the ISC and IFC, who are Greek, don’t even know about the NPHC and they’re in the greater council — the IGC.”
Newly-elected President Bawuah emphasized unity within the Council as well as reaching out to the greater University community because “we tend to be amongst ourselves a lot.”
Bawuah said he hopes to use his leadership skills to get people involved, aware and unified. To increase awareness about the organization there must first be unity among the Council’s members, he said.
“Anybody can go to a Web site to obtain information about a specific organization within the Council,” Bawuah said. “But sometimes you have to show the unity within [sororities and fraternities] in order for people to see the informal bonds.”
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