The 2018 Student Body Officer debate and voting dates were announced yesterday morning via Hilltop Happenings by Student Senate.
Candidates running for Student Body Officer positions will present their platforms in front of Student Senate at 5 p.m. April 2 in the Garrett Center during the Student Senate General Assembly meeting. The debate is open to all students and Bradley community members.
Directly following the debate, voting for SBO candidates will open at 6:30 p.m. via a Qualtrics online form, which will be emailed to the student body and can be found in Hilltop Happenings. Short introduction videos of the candidates will be available on the ballot as well as their pictures and purpose statements. SBO voting will close at 11:59 p.m. April 3.
This year’s candidates include one full ticket and three independent candidates. The ticket includes junior health science major Mikki Tran (President), junior Spanish, biochemistry and philosophy triple major Malini Wijesinghe (Speaker of the Assembly), sophomore sociology major Camille Sanders (Chief of Staff) and junior music education major Nolan Ruthe (Director of Administration).
Running independently are junior legal studies major Andrew Yohanan (President), freshman business law major Belal “B” Kherallah (Chief of Staff) and sophomore graphic design major Dylan Pashke (Director of Administration).
According to current Student Body President Dave Jensen, a senior management and leadership major, this year’s elections are scheduled later than last year’s voting dates of March 27 and 28 because of some recent changes made within Student Senate.
“The reason that we are running behind is because we restructured the Student Senate officer and the executive cabinet [positions],” Jensen said. “So, [Student Senate] restructured that and we voted on [those changes]. And that is when the elections process began because some position names changed.”
One difference from last year’s election process is the return of the debate forum, Jensen said, who cited that only one uncontested ticket ran as the reason for the debate’s absence in 2017. However, this year, the debate will occur on the same day as the opening of voting.
In 2016, the debate took place on April 6, five days before the beginning of voting on April 11. In 2015, the debate took place on April 1 while voting opened the next week on April 6.
Jensen said that the debate is being held the same day as voting this year in order to increase student body participation.
“The reason we have [the debate] the same week as the elections is because we wanted to do it at [General Assembly] so that it would get higher attendance, and there would be more student involvement,” Jensen said. “So, we are making sure that all students know about the debate, and that is why there was an announcement in Hilltop Happenings, and there will be an email sent out [today] by [the Student Activities Office].”
According to Jensen, the requirements for eligibility were changed from previous years, and these changes were added to Student Senate bylaws during the General Assembly meeting on March 5.
Jensen said candidates were eligible to run for SBO positions this year if they met one of three qualifications: 1) Candidates must have previously held a Student Senate position, 2) candidates must have previously held the position of chairperson (formerly known as cabinet vice president) or 3) they must have attended three consecutive department meetings by election day. Eligibility of the candidates was reviewed by the elections board.
The elections board was appointed by current SBOs, and the board was also voted on and approved during the General Assembly on March 5. This year’s election board includes Jensen, who serves as the board’s chair, in addition to five other current Student Senators.
According to Jensen, another part of Senate’s restructuring this year was to remove SBO petitions. Petitions which have been used in previous years to gather signatures in support of a student’s potential candidacy for an SBO position.
Next week, voting tables will be staffed by current senators for students to cast their ballots. These tables will be open from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. April 2 in the Cullom-Davis Library, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 3 in Michel Student Center and from 5 to 8 p.m. April 3 in Markin Family Recreation Center.
Election winners will be announced at 5 p.m. April 4 in the Student Center Atrium.
More information regarding elections can be found on the Facebook pages of Student Activities, http://www.facebook.com/BradleyStudentActivities/, and Student Senate, http://www.facebook.com/BUStudentSenate/. Anyone with questions regarding SBO elections can contact Jensen at djensen@mail.bradley.edu.
