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Low SGA Turnout a Shame
By Caroline Sapp '09
STAFF WRITER

Last issue one of my fellow students wrote an article on the abysmal student government election turnout. Katie Fish ’09 seemed to conclude from her interviews that it was not necessarily student apathy that has led to such low turnouts both for people running for office and for elections themselves. Instead, it is the variety of activities available on campus in which students can participate that keeps them away from the election ticket and ballot box.

During my interviews with Kristin Barnes and Eleanor O’Connor I asked O’Connor if she had any advice for Kristin for the upcoming year. Eleanor’s advised her successor to “not be afraid to look at SGA and fix it without forgetting that your main purpose is to address student issues.” Both Eleanor and Kristin admitted that the toughest part of their jobs this year was trying to determine what their constituency wanted.

For example, earlier in the fall semester a group of senior students approached the student council about extended boathouse hours. Through a series of dialogues with co-curricular life a compromise was reached where the boathouse would have extended hours once a week until 2am. Unfortunately, an incident occurred shortly thereafter causing the hours to revert back to midnight. While this was supposed to only be temporary it never returned to the once a week extended hours because it was never brought back to the attention of the SGA.

One quote from Ms. Fish’s piece particularly struck me as I was beginning my own research into the passing of the torch from this years SGA council to the 2007-2008 council: “I didn’t vote because I deleted the e-mail. We get so much junk mail.” If this campus had a mantra this statement would be it. “I did not go to (insert activity here) because I received (insert ridiculously high number) of campus wide emails that day so I just deleted them all.” I will certainly admit to deleting all my emails without even glancing at them because there are twenty or thirty emails in my inbox by noon.

I believe that the election process has become trivialized by this campus’ reliance on email as its main form of contact with its students. With so many other things on students’ minds, emails reminding them to vote online for officers they have never heard speak won’t motivate them to vote, as demonstrated by the numerous emergency elections held, and the 111- person voter turn out.

Last week, I heard a tour guide go through the library with a group of prospective students. She described to her group a Sweet Briar tradition of the past. The two balconies facing each other in the main reference room of the library used to be used for debates. Two students running for the same position would face each other and battle it out.

The student body would line up around the walls of the reference room and listen to their peers debate the issues at hand. Perhaps, instead of dividing elections into several phases, an entire day devoted solely to elections should be suggested. Candidates would debate throughout the day and students could come, listen, and vote throughout the day.

While this is just a suggestion, it is obvious that our elections need a change, and that perhaps technology is not the panacea to all our problems. Instead, SGA elections should return to a more personal form of campaigning. Perhaps then Sweet Briar will see just how passionate its student body can be.