Maybe it cannot be done — pinpointing the biggest achievement of Vanderbilt Student Government's inaugural year and its first leader, that is.

Though Cara Bilotta achieved much of her platform - and she said she still gets a warm fuzzy feeling when she sees a full, big beige Vandy Van, the fruit of months of negotiation — perhaps, she said, "our greatest achievement is something that is a little less tangible."

Among her successes, Bilotta led VSG to host the first-ever Memorial Madness, restructure the Student Finance Committee and activity fee application process, extend the hours of the Highland Quad Munchie Mart to 1 a.m., add a second 25-passenger Vandy Van, change the way seniority was determined for the housing selection (from academic credit hours to years of study), add Qdoba and Best Wok to the Taste of Nashville program, bring the USA Today Collegiate Readership Program to campus and save the student tailgate lot.

Nevertheless, she maintains that communication has been the crowning achievement of the year, if there is one.

"I think developing partnerships with administrators and student leaders has been one of the biggest accomplishments this year," Bilotta said. "This will help (VSG President) Joseph (Williams) more than anything else we have achieved."

She also thinks that it will further one of her original platform points: showing students exactly what the Student Government can and could do for the study body. Bilotta campaigned on this concept of "transparency" in Spring 2007 and believes it is one of the keys to improving VSG.

"Sometimes it is hard to inform students about what we are doing," she said. " Working on proposals for things like housing requires a lot of knowledge that the general student doesn't have. It is hard to show students exactly what the work involved is."

But the biggest challenge Bilotta encountered this year was balance, she said.

"Sometimes I felt less like a student and more like a staff member," Bilotta said. "I had to skip class, skip parts of my social life. I knew it would be a time commitment, but it was a surprise. Figuring out balance was really difficult.

"You want to be the students' main advocate, so staying in touch is so important, but it is incredibly difficult to stay in touch."

As Bilotta prepares for graduation, she said she believes there are big and bright things on the horizon for VSG and Vanderbilt.

She is hopeful that initiatives like funding financial aid for summer study abroad will go through successfully and that students will be proactive in holding their student leaders accountable.

Bilotta said she was surprised so few students contacted her directly with questions.

"I want to see students looking at their student leaders as advocates," she said. "I also want to see them keeping those leaders - Joseph Williams next year - on their toes.

"I think VSG has a really bright future, and (it) can continue to strengthen relationships; (it has) made considerable strides, and I want to see (it) improve that communication."

And Vanderbilt, she said, also has a bright future in store.

"A lot of people worry that Vanderbilt is getting too smart," she said. "I disagree."

She said she thinks Vanderbilt will not lose its social appeal anytime soon - or its SEC prowess.

"It is a place I am happy to call my alma mater," Bilotta said.

— Sydney Wilmer can be reached at sydney.e.wilmer@vanderbilt.edu