On Tuesday, many students were probably surprised to open their inboxes and find more than 100 e-mails from people they didn’t know.
The e-mails started as one e-mail that urged students to vote for the red ticket in the student body officer elections, but it soon escalated to what administrators call an “e-mail blast.”
In the e-mails, students discussed the election, but also harped their own issues such as what the next Bradley mascot should be or what time they wanted to meet their friends for dinner.
I’m sure most of you didn’t appreciate your flooded inboxes filled with pointless e-mails, but there is a larger issue that the e-mail spam has created.
Some of the e-mails that were part of the blast contained criticism directed at Student Senate and graduate student Jordan Ticaric, a candidate for student body president.
People claimed Ticaric wrote the initial e-mail.
One e-mail encouraged others not to vote for her because of the spamming, when not only did she have no part in sending out the e-mail that started it all, but she didn’t even participate in the blast.
Someone started an unjustified rumor at Ticaric’s expense, and sent it out to the entire campus.
And we think, because of those messages, some students turned out to vote against her.
We can’t say for sure the reasons for sophomore Kyle Malinowski’s win, but it is not hard to believe that people who weren’t planning on voting ended up casting their ballots for him after the spam.
It seems as if people voted for Malinowski just to cast their votes for someone who wasn’t Ticaric. The e-mails sparked people to vote who weren’t educated about the candidates and their ideas. It may have mobilized people to vote for Malinowski, but not for the right reasons.
We’re not saying Malinowski wouldn’t have won without the e-mails, but it’s hard to pretend the blast could have had no effect.
It says a lot about a student body when they are mobilized to vote because of tasteless messages in an e-mail spam. When annoyance with one candidate is the only reason they vote for the other.
Facts, not rumors or vendettas, should be the basis of making an informed decision when voting.
Not a lot of people are aware of all the things Ticaric has accomplished as president, and what Student Senate was capable of doing under her leadership.
But we have followed her as a president, and we have witnessed her make positive changes on campus throughout the past two years, which is why we endorsed her for president.
We know some people did their research and had justifiable reasons for voting against her, and we respect that. But something we cannot respect is participating in a pointless e-mail spam concerning an election that is far from pointless.
The e-mails showed that Bradley students may have some growing up to do. The sheer stupidity of many of the messages have frustrated others who go about expressing themselves maturely and honestly.
One e-mail contained a list of vulgar words, and students participated in a fake election and chose a pedophile bear as the university’s mascot.
Still more used the e-mails to plug their organizations or events. Students wasted their time achieving countless stupid, pointless things through the e-mails.
It was clear that the spam was annoying, but the e-mails didn’t relent until more than 12 hours after the first one was sent.
While we recognize that not all students participated in the blast, those who did should have shown more restraint.
We are adults, and we should be capable of expressing ourselves in a mature way.
If you have something to say about a candidate for a student body officer position, write a letter to the editor. We welcome them.
Or if you have a suggestion for a new mascot, we’re sure University President Joanne Glasser would love to hear all about it during her office hours.
And if you would like to comment on what Senate is doing, you can do it through its forum on Gmail.
Or, better yet, become a senator yourself to make changes on campus that you want to see. If you have something important to say, you shouldn’t express it through something as trivial as an e-mail blast.
And it’s so easy to join Senate, especially this past year as seats have remained open since elections in the fall.
We’re surprised that so many students expressed opinions through the blast because, frankly, we thought students were mostly apathetic.