In the case of the U-Councilor election, for instance, the number of candidates for 10 spots jumped from nine to 22. Many candidates likely entered the race due to the lower barrier to entry — campaigning and contested races require more time and effort than some of these candidates may have been willing to expend. While some late-filers could very well be just as committed as those who filed on time, filing on time is a useful — though certainly not infallible — proxy for a candidate’s commitment. The result of extending the deadline is that all candidates — both those who filed on time and those who didn’t — are competing for the same positions, despite what are likely to be varying levels of commitment. Moreover, voters have little information about who filed by the initial deadline and who filed by the second deadline when they are filling out their ballots. This could result in a less-committed student who filed later being elected over someone who met the earlier deadline.
Students who decide to run after the initial deadline should not be allowed to run against candidates who filed their paperwork on time. This unfairly disadvantages the students who were prepared to run for office initially. To counter this problem, candidates who file after the initial deadline should only be able to compete for positions that are vacant at the time of filing. In the case of U-Councilor elections this year, this would mean that the 13 new candidates should compete for one spot rather than for 10 spots.
Requiring students who file their candidacy after the deadline to compete in a separate pool would encourage candidates to think more seriously about their commitment to holding a USG office before entering the election. Moreover, this will encourage future candidates to file their candidacy by the first deadline in the years to come. Ensuring that candidates are fully committed would be beneficial to the USG and the undergraduate student body.
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Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
Return Pete Hegseth’s educational ideologies “to sender”
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Hegseth believes students are being raised to “see America as an evil place” because his confining approach to education leaves no room for admiration and criticism, hope and horror, to coexist. He treats American history, patriotic ideals and the “pillars of Western civilization” as if they were made of glass, as if “cross-cultural encounters” and critical race theory, the “cornucopia of diversity” he criticizes, could shatter them.
