March 22, 2012

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THURSDAY March 22, 2012

WINTHROP UNIVERSITY

Issue 22

WU elections kick off campaign JONATHAN MCFADDEN mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

When she was in middle school, Nayshondra Mercer received first-hand insight into the kind of politican Kambrell Garvin would grow up to be.

On Tuesday, the senior political science major remembered Garvin’s first campaign. He was in sixth grade.

Appealing to the needs of his constituency, Garvin handed out candy, Now & Later’s, with a little note attached. They read: “Vote for Kambrell Garvin Now & Later,” Mercer said.

“He’s charismatic,” she said.

“He likes to listen; he understands what students want and need.”

Back then, Mercer was convinced to support Garvin. All these years later, she’s convinced again.

Both Garvin and Aubrie vied for student votes Tuesday during their campaign So are several other students kick off event, held on the DIGS concourse. Neither candidate has challengers, who attended the CSL Chair’s but they still wish to run a serious campaign. Photos by Claire VonOstenbridge • official campaign kickoff on vonostenbridgec@mytjnow.com Mar. 20.

Though there are only two names on the ballot this With music blaring from election season, Botescu said he “absolutely” plans to speakers, and cards, stickers and fliers promoting the cast his vote. elections in hand, Garvin —alongside CSL Vice Chair “It’s good to get in the habit of exercising our right to candidate Christopher Aubrie— and other members of vote,” Botescu said. “Even in this particular case when CSL greeted and met with students on the concourse it’s not entirely necessary, we’re getting into the elecbetween the DiGiorgio Campus Center and West Centenure are the five new temporary parking spaces in tion habit.” ter. the Founder’s Lot, she said.

Taylor Spencer, junior elementary education major, Even though both candidates are unchallenged, they “He promised that,” she said. felt the same. both plan to run serious campaigns —not to encourage As the kickoff continued, Garvin and Aubrie passed “It’s still good to practice voting,” said Spencer, who students to vote for any particular candidate, but to out fliers and handed out stickers to passers-by. added that she voted in last year’s first democratic elecencourage students to vote.

Even Bryant Gore, floor technician for the campus tions in a decade. She plans to do so again.

“Every vote matters; every vote counts,” Garvin said. center, walked away with a sticker and free T-shirt.

Daven Johnson, junior psychology major, isn’t too The goal is to “engage as many students as possible,” Though as a Winthrop employee he’s unable to cast sure. he said. a vote, Gore said if he had a choice, he’d give Garvin Last year, Johnson voted. Then again, there were Sophomore interior design major Andrei Botescu another chance hands-down. more names in the hat and she had a choice. agrees.

“If he keeps going the way he’s going, he’ll be an aweNow, she feels like the choice has been taken from Last year, Botescu supported Garvin and Sapp in some man,” Gore said. their joint campaign, dubbed “Experience the Change,” her.

Nevertheless, she did applaud Garvin’s first term when they ran against two contenders, Timothy as president. The most memorable thing about his Kroboth and Cliff Totherow.

Vice chair candidate seeks ‘green’ campus initiatives AMANDA PHIPPS

Jonathan McFadden

phippsa@mytjnow.com

Though he has only spent a semester as a member of the Council of Student Leaders, sophomore international business major Christopher Aubrie has already made big plans for forming a relationship with the student body.

Aubrie is running unopposed for CSL vice chair. He is focusing on getting the word out that he is running for the position and is working on making a connection with members of the community and campus.

“I want to know what people expect from CSL,” he said.

Aubrie said he wants to implement ideas while running. He is focusing on the changes he wants to bring to campus. He said he wants to focus on sustainability and implement more rules and regulations to create a greener campus.

“We need more opportunities to recycle on campus,” he said.

Aubrie said he has mixed emotions about running unopposed.

“It is an unique opportunity,” he said. “Some people need more time to

CSL chair will still run to earn votes mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

grow as leaders.”

Aubrie said he wants other people to run so the student body can see different views. He encourages other students to run for a CSL position if they feel they can make a difference.

“If you feel like you can make a change on campus or in the community, you should do what is in your power [to make that change],” he said.

Aubrie said his role as vice chair of

See AUBRIE page 3

Questions? Contact us at editors@mytjnow.com Serving Winthrop since 1923

Set to run as the unchallenged incumbent in Winthrop’s second student-wide elections, CSL Chair Kambrell Garvin —without a contender to halt his flow— isn’t taking anything for granted.

The 20-year-old junior political science major from Columbia said he plans to work just as hard for votes this year as he did last year when democratic elections on campus returned after a 10-year absence.

“Our democracy here at Winthrop is still in its infancy,” said Garvin, who added that the lack of names on the ballot isn’t necessarily a killing blow to Winthrop’s recaptured democracy.

Students still inter-

ested in running for president or vice president can enter the race as write-in candidates at least two days before voting begins on Apr. 3.

To be eligible, they must gather 200 signatures on a petition with other pertinent application materials.

Just because Garvin’s running unchallenged, it doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet. He’ll be running for votes and keeping students interested in the political process, he said.

Last year, 18 percent of the student body voted in the elections, a “phenomenal” number compared with the national average, Garvin said.

He wants to see that

For videos of the candidates and more information visit:

momentum continued.

Garvin cautioned that it’s possible for CSL to return to the internalvoting, non-democratic leadership body it once was if students don’t run or don’t vote in future years.

See GARVIN page 3

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THURSDAY March 22, 2012

TO VOTE APRIL 3, GO TO WWW.WINTHROP.EDU/CSL

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CSL: A lesson in democratic history

By Jonathan McFadden mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

As it stands today, the Council of Student Leaders is 36 members strong, and its executive leadership is democratically elected by the student body.

But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, two years ago, members of CSL elected their own chair and vice chair internally, without any input from the rest of the student body.

According to Frank Ardaiolo, the archetypal brainchild of CSL (whether he agrees or not), a “voice in the distance” is to thank for the popular student vote and a two-year-in-the-running democratic student government.

In spring 2001, Ardaiolo, vice president of student life, noticed that Winthrop’s Student Government Association seemed to be more of a “debate society.”

The group’s activities “ebbed and flowed” depending on the strength of their leadership while members focused more on electing the president.

“It became much more of a popularity type of thing, and in my opinion wasn’t accomplishing what it could have accomplished,” Ardaiolo said.

Members began to realize that the organization was deteriorating, so they focused on creating a more cohesive constitution. A referendum explaining the constitution was presented before the entire student body on Oct. 9, 2001, but it only received 120 affirmative votes from the total 142 votes cast.

“So we had 142 people out of 6,000” actually participate, Ardaiolo said.

SGA subsequently called for nominations for an election of new leadership.

Four students submitted applications for the 15 executive and senate seats under the revised structure. Another five students volunteered for the appointed positions.

“It would appear from the results that the SGA is not currently in a position to fulfill its ongoing responsibilities,” according to a memo Ardaiolo wrote to

President Anthony DiGiorgio on Oct. 31, 2001.

With that in mind, Ardaiolo suggested the creation of a council of student leaders that would be “chosen from the nine students who came forward for the SGA elections and appointments” and current leaders from other organization.

“I, in turn, would inform the Council of pertinent university business and ask for their advice on appropriate issues,” Ardaiolo wrote in the memo.

Winthrop’s Board of Trustees approved the new constitution Ardaiolo crafted on Nov. 1, 2001, and a year later, the Council of Student Leaders formed on Nov. 8, 2002.

A few years later, “this voice in the distance” began to cry that CSL was not a democracy, Ardaiolo said.

Though he felt differently, Ardaiolo told “the voice” to create the democracy.

And they did.

To avoid a similar “dysfunction” from the past, Ardaiolo said a vibrant and active student body is needed to represent CSL’s core functions: representing the student voice, allocating funds and communicating with university entities.

“My sense is that if the direct vote gets people energized, great,” Ardaiolo said, before explaining that he’s worked at many universities where winning the election became more of a popularity contest.

“And people who had absolutely no training, no appreciation for true leadership get in power and things fall apart,” he said.

“”

So we had 142 people out of 6,000 actually participate.

Frank Ardaiolo

Vice president of student life

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VOTING BEGINS 4.3.2012 AUBRIE • from front CSL will be to act as a liaison between CSL, the president and the student body.

“I will also help the president any way I can,” he said.

Aubrie plans to establish a relationship with Garvin as well. “[I want to] see how we can work together more efficiently to create bigger and better change,” he said.

Another change is the way the student allocations committee (SAC) is run. In

the past, the vice chair headed the SAC process, which allocates money to student groups and organizations for conferences, special events and programs.

Starting next year, a SAC administrator will oversee the process, giving the vice president the ability to stretch his legs in “the day-to-day process of CSL,” CSL Chair Kambrell Garvin said.

Aubrie said this decision allows the vice chair the flexibility and time to communicate with students.

GARVIN • from front But, “I just don’t see that happening,” he said.

Leadership in action On Tuesday, Garvin kicked off his campaign —equipped with a new slogan, “Leadership in Action,” meant to drive the point home that Garvin is a results-driven candidate, he said.

A year ago, Garvin, alongside current CSL Vice Chair Kaitlin Sapp, campaigned on a platform that promised transparency from student government. He also promised to start initiatives that would draw in state legislators to talk about the increasing costs of higher education. He also said he wanted to research the possibility of giving students 30 minutes of free legal aide.

Gauging CSL’s success with those promises —adding temporary parking spaces, initiating an email campaign that flooded the inboxes of state lawmakers and realizing students required more help with housing and landlords than needing legal

aide—Garvin said he’ll campaign on those same goals and others.

One new component he plans to implement is focusing on campus safety more closely.

“Students should feel safe on campus,” Garvin said.

Garvin seeks to encourage CSL’s new Political Action Committee (PAC), which engineered several voter’s registration drives this academic year. Their efforts paid off with 400 new voters registered to vote, he said.

Instead of offering students minutes of legal aide, Garvin wants to help students with off-campus housing issues they may have. Throughout the first year of his presidency, Garvin said many students have come to him about issues they have with landlords that take advantage of students desperate for housing.

“Those sort of things are absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

Election brings online voting, campaigning

By Catherine Zende zendec@mytjnow.com

Control Your

Layout by Claire Byun

The days of paper ballots and hanging chads are a distant memory to college students who are taking advantage of convenient, electronic voting. The Council of Student Leaders will once again utilize online voting to elect a president and vice president in the upcoming election.

Christine Counts-Davis, election commissioner for CSL, believes the process is advantageous because it is the most convenient way for students to vote. “Online voting is better for students because they don’t have to be at a certain place at a certain time,” Counts-Davis said. The online voting will last for three days and requires students to log in with their Winthrop usernames and passwords.

The web voting process has been around for years, but this is just the second year that CSL will use the online system to record votes. James Hammond, associate vice president for Information Technology at Winthrop, maintains the online voting system that is used for various organizations across campus.

According to Hammond, Winthrop web voting began as a way to vote for Homecoming King and Queen, but has grown to include many different elections.

Although the CSL election currently has only one candidate for each open position, CSL is still accepting write-in candidates. According to Counts-Davis, write-in candidates will need to fill out the same application materials completed by the current candidates Kambrell Garvin and Chris Aubrie.

However, write-in candidates must

also collect at least 200 signatures from current Winthrop students to “show that they are serious about being in the election,” Counts-Davis said.

Approval of write-in candidates is also necessary to work with the current web voting system that does not currently accept the actual typing in of names. “A write-in would require a lot of work on somebody’s part to manage. You’d have to have a way to record that a person did a write-in and didn’t vote twice. That functionality is not there,” Hammond said.

All candidates [current and new] would need their names listed on the site for voting purposes.

While old methods of paper voting have occasionally been questioned for accuracy, Hammond said that the web voting has only been questioned once and the complaint was proven illegitimate.

Counting votes is often done quickly and votes are always anonymous, according to Hammond.

“No one is ever going to be permitted to know who someone voted for because that would violate the whole principle of electronic voting,” Hammond said. “We will never release that kind of information.”

Counts-Davis expects candidates to campaign via flyers, meet and greet events and social networking campaigns.

Last year, Garvin and Kaitlin Sapp [who ran for vice president of CSL] joined together to make a Facebook page for their campaign.

Web voting will begin April 3rd.

THURSDAY March 22, 2012

THE JOHNSONIAN

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