Vote for this year's Student Senate Representatives
Photo via Renee Silverman on Flickr
From 12:00 a.m. Monday, September 22 through 11:59 p.m., voting will be open for this year's Student Senate Representatives. Not only will this include class president positions, but also all positions on Student Activities subcommittees.
You can vote by going to this link:
https://eballot4.votenet.com/sarahlawrence
The list of all candidates, and their respective campaign pages upon mouseover of names, are as follows:
Senior Class President
➢ Delaney Bradley & Ray Schechter
➢ Emily Rogers & Stephanie Permut
➢ Natasha Leonard & Owen Marks
Sophomore Class President
➢ Yolanda Lyne Cando '17
Freshman Class President
➢ MaShaela Mackenzie '18
Student Activities Subcommittee
➢ Jacob Zhu
➢ Tahmid Munat
Committee on Admissions
➢ Chloe Houdre
➢ Faith McGlothlin
General Committee
➢ Hasan Nisar
Curriculum Committee
➢ Sam Harwood
➢ Shoumik Bhattacharya
➢ William Duffield
Committee on Student Life
➢ Elena Tinschert
Committee on Diversity
➢ Lauren Hargrove
Though only one candidate is running for many of the positions available, voting is still imperative. While a plurality of votes is necessary in order to win an opposed position, according to the Senate Constitutional Bylaws, a candidate running unopposed must have at least 20 votes in order to win the position.
Senior Class President candidate Delaney Bradley chimed in, "Students should take the time to vote because the results of the election will impact the course of the 2014-2015 academic year. Although students may feel that their individual votes won't make a difference, that is far from the truth. If every student had that mentality, there would be no race at all. One of the reasons Ray and I decided to run was because we didn't want the senior class presidential race to be uncontested. We wanted to provide our classmates with an alternative trajectory for our senior year, so they could decide for themselves what kind of representation they wanted rather than having it chosen for them because uncontested candidates won by default."
Unfortunately, interest in Student Senate was low this year, and no one stepped up to run for every position. The positions still remaining are Students for Students Scholarship Fund (1 position), Students for Students Scholarship Fund For the Committee on Student Life (1 position), Committee on Diversity (1 position), Committee on Student Life (1 position), New Student-at-Large (2 positions), Committee on Student Work (2 positions), and General Committee (1 position). The Student Senate will hold a special election in the coming weeks to determine these representatives, so for those politically inclined there is still time to get involved.
In the race Senior Class President, while there is much diversity on the ballot, all candidate teams seem to agree on a mix between providing their classmates with a good time and legitimate political leaders. In their campaign platform, Emily Rogers and Stephanie Permut wrote: "Whether the matter is one of institutional policy or how to throw the best party, we will be responsive to the needs, wants, and opinions of our constituency—the Class of 2015. We pledge to democratize Senate, to take your input seriously, and to hold the administration accountable."
If you missed your opportunity to meet the candidates in front of the TeaHaus on Friday, SLCSpeaks published an awesome piece covering the most competitive group of the election: the candidates for Senior Class president. You can read the interviews here. It's not too late to meet your candidates, though! There will be an election party tomorrow night from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in the North Room of the Pub where voters will be able to talk to all of the candidates in person. Free pizza and soda will be provided for all of those in attendance.
"Our goal is to make this year, our final year, the most fun and memorable yet," added Senior Class President team Owen Marks and Natasha Leonard in a statement to The Phoenix. "With events ranging to raucous blue room parties to snowball fights on the lawn, with developed policy aimed to bring back the internship van and to address concerns brought forth by the transfer and commuter student community, and with your voice fully represented in the senate, the Class of 2015 will have an incredible senior year."
For more information on the election, check out the Facebook event here.
For more information on student senate, check out their Facebook page here.
by Wade Wallerstein
Editor-in-Chief
wwallerstein@gm.slc.edu