On Oct. 15, the night he was confirmed as president of the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), Jay Chamberlin said he wanted UPUA to be fully functional within a month.

And at the end of the first week of Chamberlin's term, UPUA has made some progress toward that goal.

Chamberlin said he has met with Penn State President Graham Spanier and Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey, adding he is focused on filling vacant UPUA representative positions.

Sixteen students ran for UPUA representative seats in the Oct. 11 election. However, because of election rules that disqualified candidates who had low vote totals or no competition, only six of those candidates were actually elected.

The rest of the 27 total UPUA representative positions will be appointed by external organizations specified in the UPUA constitution. Chamberlin said he e-mailed the presidents of the other organizations within hours of being informed that he had been named president. He said as of Thursday, five additional positions had been filled. Most college student council presidents said they have begun considering whom they will appoint to UPUA's "academic unit" seats.

Two of the academic unit positions, for the Eberly College of Science and the College of Information Science and Technology (IST), were contested in the UPUA election.The Eberly College of Science student council appointed Max Pell, who won the most votes in the election, to be its representative. The IST student government appointed Pedro Huerta, who tied his opponent but had more experience with the IST student government.

Tom Sabbatelli, president of the Earth and Mineral Sciences student council, said the council's vice president would probably fill its UPUA position.

Chris Brink, former UPUA vice presidential candidate who ran with Jay Bundy, had expressed interest in taking the spot, but Sabbatelli said Brink would not be considered because he wasn't on the council. Blasko said the Senate will discuss the status of the positions at its Oct. 24 meeting.

Mark Taticchi, Association of Residence Hall Students (ARHS) president, said the group would be distributing applications soon for on-campus representative positions.

Greg Heleniak, chair of the University Park Allocations Committee, said he would be the group's UPUA representative for the near future.

A method for appointing UPUA's open at-large positions will be determined at this week's meeting, Chamberlin said.