Meeting with university administration, reviewing budgets, addressing concerns about the core curriculum and envisioning the future social life of students is not on the agenda of every Fairfield student. FUSA President Rob Vogel ’13 and Vice President Mark Evans ’13 have managed these responsibilities for the past year, and they are now preparing to pass on their roles to a new staff as the FUSA elections approach.
The first step in the process of running for a FUSA president or vice president is submitting an application, along with a petition signed by any 20 students. According to FUSA’s application packet, which was due Feb. 11, 20 students from the candidate’s class must sign if the student is running for a Senate position.
FUSA positions include President, Vice President, and five senators per class. If not enough students run for senate, “responsibility falls on the class president to fill voids within their class.” Class presidents are then elected amongst the elected senators.
“The most difficult part of the process for me was the decision,” said Vogel. “It’s also always a challenge to put your name out there amongst your peers to represent them in a campaign setting, but I’m very happy I went through with it. I’d encourage anyone on the fence about doing it to do so in the future.”
Once they have been confirmed to be in good standing with the University and have attended FUSA’s Election and Posting Policy Meeting, candidates are allowed to post and campaign publicly. FUSA’s Election and Posting Policy Meeting was also held on Feb. 11.
Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates campaign and are elected individually, but sometimes they combine their campaigns. This year’s Presidential candidate Alex Long ‘14 is campaigning with VP candidate Alex Cucchi ’15, against Presidential candidate Sam Maxfield ’14 with VP Joe McConville ‘14.
A major opportunity for candidates is at the Meet the Candidates night, held on Feb. 12 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Candidates mingle with students in Barone and promote their campaigns.
“We encourage candidates to engage with students as much as possible wherever it is appropriate to do so,” said Vogel. “This is just a campaign event that gives candidates a publicized venue to do so.”
When necessary, primary elections are held to elect presidential and vice presidential candidates. They would have been held on Feb. 19, but as only two students are running for each position, they were not necessary this year.
Tonight, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m. the Presidential and Vice Presidential Debate will be held in the lower level BCC. Senior Martin O’Sullivan will be moderating the debate. Vogel added, “Our Chair of Programming, Jules McGrath ’13, and our Chair of COSO, Courtney Onofrio ’13 share the election responsibilities, so they are the ones who oversee the process.”
“They should be able to be pretty clear with what their objectives are through the debate, and it gives them a good platform to do so,” said Evans, “A lot of this is on the candidates to take advantage of that platform and shape the debate.”
Vogel said that he thinks a major focus for the next president will be meeting the needs of student social life, both in terms of the BCC building itself and activity programming.
“We have a student center that is fundamentally flawed by design to foster any sense of natural community,” said Vogel, “The next FUSA President will be challenged to continue to provide both innovative programs and traditions to our campus.”
“[The next president] will also need to continue to enhance communication between the administration and the student body, which is a two-way street, significant for successful policy changes,” added Vogel.
Elections will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 26 in the lower level BCC from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Results will be announced at the Levee at 10 p.m by The HAM channel.
See The Mirror’s twitter for updates throughout the debate and on election day.
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