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Lack of information fails student body

Student Body Officer elections were held this past week, and to be frank: we don’t think Student Senate took it as seriously as they should have. Campus was not informed of the annual debate (held on April 2) until it was held March 30 – that’s just three days of notice.

Is that alarming, or is it just us?

The earliest evidence we could find of campus even being informed of an election happening was a tweet on Student Senate’s Twitter account (@BradleySenate) from March 19: “There will be an informational meeting Wednesday March 21st at 8pm for those interested in becoming a student body officer in the Student Center in room 202. If you’ve ever wanted to be a student leader, now is your chance to learn more! #SenateSnippets.”

If anyone thinks that’s enough time for someone to gather a ticket, research positions and campaign on campus, they’re wrong. We want to be led by students who are familiar with how our university is run, and that’s not possible if our leaders aren’t given the chance to prepare.

It’s also not enough time for students to get to know the candidates’ platforms and goals – and The Scout wasn’t able to do sit-down interviews with each student and run endorsements in the paper like we do every year. We weren’t notified of the race ahead of time at all – we received the campus-wide email from the Student Activities Office on March 30 like everybody else, and saw the notification on Hilltop Happenings the day before.

Monday’s debate was also an unacceptable and insufficient way to prepare candidates and students for the election ahead. It gave each candidate maybe 20 minutes to answer questions – some of which were asked by Student Senators themselves. Immediately after that wrapped up, voting opened – and only remained so for less than 48 hours.

One solution to this could be keeping Student Senate’s website updated for students who might have questions and want to check out the General Assembly meeting minutes.

But when The Scout tried to check Student Senate meeting minutes earlier this semester for an article, nothing had been uploaded since December of 2017. We’re glad to see the website, which can be found at https://www.bradley.edu/stuorgs/senate/, has since been updated. Nonetheless, we challenge our Student Body Officers (especially the incoming officers who will handle that responsibility) to keep the student body informed of what Senate covers in their weekly General Assembly meetings.

So what’s the cost of lack of preparation and information?

Voter turnout.

Only 963 people voted in this year’s election. That’s it. Sure, that’s up from last year’s 536 votes, but the 2017 election was also uncontested. In 2016, when candidates there were multiple tickets running against each other, 1,694 students voted.

That’s not great. Bradley is a school of over 5,000 students. How is it we were unable to get less than 20 percent of those students to participate in an election?

We would bet that not many students knew much about the candidates. Not many students knew about the debate. Not many students knew about voting.

Maybe next time, we can find out about how to choose the students who will lead us – those who will act as liaisons between students and administration – more than a week before it’s time to decide who they will be. Maybe next time we can count on feeling more informed by those student senators we already look to. Then, when elections come around again next year, we won’t feel like Student Senate is repeating this unfortunate chapter of history.

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The Scout is published by members of the student body of Bradley University. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the University.