From Hillary Clinton to Mitt Romney to Barack Obama, the news has recently been flooded with people declaring their presidential intentions. I hope that this year during the Student Assembly elections, we will also see a diverse set of candidates running for office. The SA is in need of a makeover, and this can only happen if more people decide to run.
p. Not having run for the SA senate was one of my regrets at the College, so I was excited to hear that there was a vacancy in one of the senior senate positions at the start of this semester. This was my chance to get involved, so I jumped at the opportunity to apply for the position. The U.S. Senate is comprised of 16 females, and the College senate is not any better, with only two undergraduate female senators. This is clearly not enough females to speak for the entire population of women on campus. Just last semester, a bill was almost passed that ignored the female perspective on sexual assault cases. With more women creating bills, this oversight could have been avoided. Therefore, I applied for the senior senate seat, confident that I could offer a fresh perspective to the senate, something I think that the SA needs. The senate is a bit of a boys club, comprised mainly of white, male government majors. As a female economics and environmental studies major, I obviously do not fit this description.
p. A few days went by, and I received no confirmation that my application had been received. I found out that James Evans had been appointed to the senior senate seat, but I still had not received any notification. This was the second time that I had applied for a position in the SA (I previously applied for the Department of Health and Safety), and I did not receive any notice of my application. Finally, the day after Evans became the new senator, I received an e-mail thanking me for applying and denying me a spot.
p. While I am confident that Evans will make an excellent addition to the senate, I am disappointed with the way that the application procedure was handled. Before applying, I heard rumors that Evans was the favorite candidate, but I am frustrated that I wasn’t really given a chance. As an outsider, it appears as if the SA is an insider group, consisting mainly of people from the same group of friends.
p. I am not upset about losing the race, but I wish that I had gotten involved with the SA early on in my college career. I urge you all to find out about the positions you can apply to or run for with the SA, and to not be afraid to actually run. We need a more diverse SA to represent our diverse campus. This can only happen if more people run for the positions offered, and if we vote for a SA that accurately reflects the student body.
p. __Liz Burroughs is a senior at the College. Her views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__