While some students place bets on the annual Final Four tournament, there is another contest taking place this week with a much more certain result.

LSA sophomore Andrew Yahkind and LSA junior Paige Butler are running in an uncontested election for LSA Student Government president and vice president, respectively.

Students will be able to vote online starting at midnight tomorrow until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday for MSA representatives from their school. LSA students will also be able to vote in the LSA-SG election.

Yahkind is the current LSA-SG Budget Allocation Committee chair, and Butler is the LSA-SG Academic Relations officer. They represent Students 4 Michigan, the dominant party on the Michigan Student Assembly and LSA-SG.

Their platform holds a confidently ambitious list of issues they hope to tackle in the coming term, running on the slogan “real proposals, real results.”

On the coming ballot there will also be a question put to LSA students about whether to restrict class registration brackets — the groupings, based on total accumulated credits, that determine how early LSA students can register for classes. The proposal would narrow the registration brackets from increments of 15 credits to five. The candidates said they hope this will further increase the advantage of students who have more credits.

Butler said she has sponsored and helped pass resolutions in both MSA and LSA-SG in the effort to narrow registration brackets.

Butler has also worked on expanding the range of academic minors offered to LSA students. Some of the minors the candidates hope to establish are chemistry, English, psychology, journalism, religion and international studies. An international relations major will be available this fall. Other minors are still in the preliminary stages of development, Butler said.

Current LSA-SG president Ryan Ford praised the candidates, saying Butler has worked particularly hard to get an international studies minor passed. Butler said the minor will be ready some time during next year, but she is unsure whether it will be ready by Fall 2005 or Winter 2006

One project Yahkind said he has devoted great time and energy to is expanding the amount of credits offered for International Baccalaureate test scores.

Yahkind said he hopes to continue to take on Advanced Placement and IB credits next year.

Yahkind and Butler said they hope to improve communications between LSA-SG and MSA, the student body and the press during their term.

Yahkind explained that one goal that he and Butler had was to increase the amount of things that are available online, in order to help reach out to students more.

The candidates have proposed to work with the peer academic advising office to create an online bank of old exams. No contact has been made so far to PAAO to get this project started.

Yahkind also said he wants to develop communication and coordination with MSA. Yahkind said they have proposed working with MSA in getting Advice Online — a project that compiles course evaluations and publishes them on a website — up and running again.

Yahkind said that while MSA is working on Advice Online, LSA-SG hopes to get course evaluations published for LSA classes, but he said he was reluctant to give a date for completion.

Students 4 Michigan is running nine candidates for representative seats in LSA-SG.

In order to keep students more informed about their representatives and their progress, Yahkind said he hopes to have representatives publish their plans periodically online.

Yahkind was a member of the Students First party, which retired its name before last semester’s elections, and helped to found Students 4 Michigan along with other former Students First members.