It’s not a national election, but SGA presidential campaigns are sure to entertain.
Butler University students may be thinking like I am that this U.S. presidential campaign season has gone on long enough, considering all of the media hype it gets.
Butler students are soon going to feel the hype getting closer to home as the university’s own campaign season
starts.
What the Student Government Association’s presidential election lacks in buses and scenic stops all over unremarkable Midwestern states, it makes up for in a slew of interesting issues for candidates to tackle.
Butler faces a lot of changes, given its growing student body and national attention, and university President Jim Danko brings a new vision that makes progress a priority.
SGA is also undergoing growing pains: Committees struggle to fill up, and the assembly is adjusting to open meetings and increased media attention.
Students need to watch this campaign as closely as their grocery money and vote for whichever candidate they think can tackle these issues.
Sure, the candidates cannot start the actual campaign for a few weeks, but that will not stop the saber rattling and pre-campaign fervor.
Thank goodness.
SGA meetings this year have been open to the press and public, so more people have seen the inner workings of government.
Hopefully, this early start and the newly opened meetings will increase vote total over last year.
In last year’s presidential election, only about 25 percent of the student body voted.
Even if students do not partake in any SGA-sponsored events, the vote is the most direct chance they have to affect that programming, far more deliberate than attending assembly.
The SGA handles more than $700,000 in student activity fees, so every student has a stake in the election.
Perhaps SGA’s various events hold no interest for you.
The future president has the power to change these events, and at least in Butler’s elections, you have a vote that matters.
So while no one should be excited about the long election haul, every student should invest themselves in learning about the presidential hopefuls.
The only thing worse than the abysmal voting turnout last year was the attendance at debates and other campaign events.
If students do not take the time and effort to get to know the candidates, they cannot use their votes to any meaningful extent.
Current President Al Carroll announced after some deliberation that he would not seek reelection.
Because of the lack of familiar faces, students should not wait for the campaign to get to know all of the candidates, such as Kelsa Reynolds, current SGA vice president of operations.
