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As people consider what the coming months hold for the Republican primaries and eventual presidential race, a similar electoral process merits the attention of students here at Fairfield University.
The Fairfield University Student Association is holding elections for positions in their executive cabinet within the coming weeks. Positions will include president, vice president and senator.
So what makes the FUSA elections so important this year? Perhaps it is last semester’s resignation of Charlie Knights ‘12 as FUSA president, promoting then-Vice President Rob Vogel ‘13.
Citing a difficulty in balancing extracurriculars and education, Knights resigned from his office mid-December, informing the student body via e-mail. Following the FUSA constitution, Vogel was promoted to president.
Although Vogel said he could not campaign as an incumbent president until after Feb. 13, he expressed his interest in running and welcomed the challenge of a multi-candidate race.
“If there are people that want to also run, then I am looking forward to the event of having people compete and run against me,” he said in an interview with The Mirror. “I’m open to having debate and I think it would almost be a good thing, you know, to increase interest by the student population.”
The election also comes at a time of financial concern within the school. According to the administration last month, the school is amidst a $6.1 million budget deficit.
Vogel was quoted in a past Mirror article as saying that “unless Fairfield seriously changes their models, and restructures what they’re looking to do financially … I think it will be inevitable that they will have to eventually cut programs.”
In addition to regularly holding open forum meetings with a portion of the student body, Vogel sits on the University Budget Committee along with various faculty, administrators and other student representatives in order to voice student concerns for potentially cut programs.
“We live in a culture of complaining at Fairfield,” said Vogel. “The reason that I’m serving students is to be working on coming up with solutions. Not [to] always be the one that has the solutions, but properly delegating, finding people that are relevant and can be working on solutions, creating different committees, and just bringing people together to talk, to have those debates.”
Other FUSA responsibilities include planning the spring and fall concerts, the Presidential Ball, featured speakers, and a variety of other campus events, according to their website. The next FUSA president can look forward to filling this role of student mediator and event organizer.
So what can one expect within the coming weeks in terms of elections?
− A general information session about the entire electoral process will take place on Feb. 6 and 7 from 7-8 p.m. in the BCC 200. Any questions one may have about running or voting can be brought here.
− Applications packets for those applying to run for a position are due by Feb. 10 at 4 p.m. in BCC 200.
− A meeting discussing campaigning policies will be held on Feb. 13 from 7-10:30 p.m. in BCC 200.
− A primary debate will be held in the lower BCC on February 16 from 7-10:30 p.m. Candidates will debate the big issues to try to convince the audience who is worthy to be a frontrunner.
− Similar to the upcoming Republican primaries this spring, there will be primary elections on Feb. 21 from 10am to 7:30 p.m. in the lower BCC. These are to eliminate all but two runners for each position to ensure that each candidacy will be won by a majority vote.
− The general elections will take place on Feb. 28 from 10 a.m. -7:30pm in the lower BCC with the winners of the race being announced after 9 p.m. that night at the Levee post-party.
Be sure to follow The Mirror in the next few weeks for extensive election coverage!
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