The following letters to the editor were submitted by Daniel Seidita ’21 and Katharine Janes ’21, respectively, as updated statements regarding their candidacy for UVA Law’s Student Bar Association President. The Law Weekly did not edit either statement, nor does the Law Weekly endorse either candidate. By running these statements, the Law Weekly merely hopes to help students better decide which candidate to vote for in this election. Any comments, concerns, or questions regarding the content of these statements should be addressed to the candidates themselves.
Daniel Seidita’s ’21 Updated Presidential Candidate Statement
I’d like to begin by thanking the Virginia Law Weekly for its excellent coverage of this year’s SBA Elections. Ben Stievater penned a phenomenal piece about Tuesday’s debate, and I suggest you read it if you haven’t already.
The SBA is a complex organization comprised of energetic and passionate students dedicated to improving our collective law school experience. In addition to planning large-scale events like Foxfield and Barrister’s Ball, the SBA serves as a liaison between the student body and the law school faculty and administration.
Put simply, I am running for SBA President because I think that there are ways to improve the UVA Law student experience by transforming the SBA into an organization that is radically transparent, open, and inclusive.
Throughout the course of my campaign, I have asked hundreds of students about their experiences with the SBA. Regularly, students have expressed that they know little about what the SBA does or how it makes decisions. Few students have seen a copy of the SBA’s budget, and only a handful of students have read minutes from SBA meetings. The fact that an organization with such influence appears to be operating in relative obscurity is concerning to me.
If elected SBA President, I will try my best to publicize the full extent of the SBA’s involvement on our grounds. Whether by live-streaming SBA meetings or by releasing page-long summaries of the organization’s budget at the beginning of each semester, I will strive to implement common-sense measures to increase the SBA’s accountability to the students it serves. I will also solicit feedback on large-scale events such as Foxfield immediately after these events take place to ensure that all students are given an opportunity to express their concerns. Every SBA decision—no matter how big or how small—should be made with as much input from the broader student body as possible.
I believe that the election of an SBA-outsider will serve as a powerful reminder to other students that anyone can contribute to the SBA. With few extracurricular commitments planned for the 2020-21 school year, I will be able to dedicate an enormous amount of time and energy to serving the student body as SBA President. I look forward to doing so. Expect more.
Thank you for your time. You can learn more about my platform on Instagram (@seidita2020) and Facebook (facebook.com/seidita2020).
Humbly your servant in service,
Danny Seidita
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dvs9qz@virginia.edu
Katharine Janes’s ’21 Updated Presidential Candidate Statement
Hi, UVA Law!
I am running for SBA President because I respect and care deeply about our community at UVA Law and the people who comprise it. With your support, I know I can be an effective leader of SBA, because I have the experience and knowledge to confront new challenges while working as a team player to improve our law school community.
No institution is perfect, SBA included. As Secretary, I have worked hard to hear and heed student input to better equip SBA to amplify and actualize student perspectives. My foremost goal as President is to create the most welcoming and inclusive community possible, as I have endeavored to do in the last two years of my service with SBA. My views on how we can make this happen are informed through my work with SBA, but also my work with affinity groups (as one example, check out the VLW Speak Up project!). Below is a brief description of some of the work I did on SBA, and my vision for how we can work to improve SBA in the coming term.
Past Efforts: Some initiatives I helped coordinate with SBA are relatively well-known, like Bar Review, SBA Socials, Foxfield, Fauxfield, NCAA game watches, and Barrister’s Ball. Some initiatives, though, were less high-profile. Early this year, I re-designed the layout of the bi-weekly SBA email to more effectively communicate information to the Law School community. We saw a substantial uptick in student replies to those emails – with questions, comments, and concerns – which signaled to me SBA was making real progress on student engagement efforts. As Secretary, I supported the initiation of new, free weekly yoga classes at North Grounds Rec Center; “Coffee with the Dean” in support of diversity and inclusion efforts; an ESL and mentorship program for LLMs; and the purchase of a new kegerator to keep your beverages cold for SBA socials. When students expressed concerns about classrooms being too warm and clocks being too late, I aided in rolling out an online platform for students to report these issues directly to Building Services. My contributions—all of which were part of team efforts—have been fundamentally motivated by the desire to make SBA an advocate for all UVA Law students.
In the Works: As a member of SBA this year, I strongly supported efforts to improve student wellbeing. As an example, for the past four weeks, SBA has been engaged in discussions with Dean Kendrick about 1L grade release policies, specifically regarding when and in what manner results are distributed. In response to negative student feedback about class registration communications last fall, I personally spoke with Dean Dugas and generated a plan to improve those communications, which will be released later this spring. When it was evident that SBA transitions were taking too long because of a lack of institutional memory, I helped created internal mechanisms to store and share transition documents across administrations. Institutional change takes time. I have, however, demonstrated an aptitude and willingness to advocate for necessary change on behalf of students.
What’s to Come: SBA, without a doubt, has significant room for growth, and I want to create that necessary change. My priorities include: (1) revamping the Foxfield organizational structure so that 1Ls do not carry the financial and logistical burden of coordinating the event; (2) reducing cost barriers for student participation in all major SBA events, particularly through the establishment of a fund dedicated to serving those of limited financial means; (3) creating a more direct link between affinity groups and SBA Exec through intentional, regular meetings; (4) building on “Coffee with the Dean” to facilitate a much-needed conversation with the administration about diversity and inclusion; (5) enhancing institutional resources and support for post-graduate public service work; (6) implementing more effective mechanisms to gather, aggregate, and act on student opinion; (7) targeting advertising toward students about the many ways SBA participation is possible (e.g. through service as a senator, on committees, etc.); and (8) making sure we never again go without Friday afternoon cookies.
Responding to criticism of institutions is a necessary part of student leadership, and I have demonstrated a willingness and ability to do the hard work of translating those criticisms into action. I take seriously SBA’s responsibility to be a vital resource for all of our law school community, and service to this institution is my top priority as a student at UVA. As President, I will listen to student feedback, meet challenges, and advocate on students’ behalf. I have loved being part of this important work for the past two years and feel strongly that, while there is certainly more work to be done, I am the woman for the job.
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kmj4vg@virginia.edu