The four candidates for executive vice president come armed with ideas to help students pay less, feel safer and form a better community. But most of these goals are ill-conceived and don’t fit the job description of the Student Association’s second-in-command.
Junior Avra Bossov was the only candidate to present a clear understanding of the EVP role and to craft goals that fit the position. Her plans to rejuvenate the SA Senate and improve the quality of care at the University Counseling Center require stronger action plans, but would substantially improve student life. For these reasons, The Hatchet’s editorial board endorses Bossov for SA executive vice president.
The most important job of the EVP is to run the SA Senate – a group of 38 students typically full of ambition but lacking cohesion. She was the only candidate who addressed this task in her platform. In fact, when asked, she immediately listed it as her number one priority.
Bossov wants to turn the SA Senate into a forum where senators, administrators and students can discuss solutions to campus issues. We see the value in facilitating collaboration among the groups that make up the University, but this is not necessarily the right method. Senators themselves have been known for playing hooky from the very sessions they were elected to attend. We don’t think the average student would jump at the chance to attend either.
What’s important is that Bossov knows she needs to reexamine how the SA Senate fits into students’ lives. But she needs a solid plan to get students in the seats – perhaps by inviting student organizations based on the day’s topic of discussion.
As deputy chief of staff under SA president Julia Susuni, Bossov shows an understanding of the current administration’s important long-term goals such as student health – as well as those of current SA presidential candidates.
When asked how her goals would match up with those of either Nick Gumas or Daniel Egel-Weiss, she was the only EVP candidate who could specifically identify areas where she’d like to collaborate. To us, this showed her ability to look at the EVP position within an essential context: She would not work as a stand-alone leader, but rather as part of a team. We did not see this awareness from her opponents, many of whom seemed to run on watered-down presidential platforms.
Her platform’s overarching themes – student health, student safety, career services and campus community – were well-chosen and admirable. They are topics that students care about and have consistently thrown their support behind. But we were disappointed that Bossov did not include adequate detail on her projects, suggesting a lack of research.
Her plans to improve the quality of care at the UCC, re-work how students receive campus crime alerts and ensure a student voice in interdisciplinary academic plans were vaguely defined and lacked clear implementation strategies. Her current role on the SA should have given her an edge in speaking in great detail on how to move the levers at the University.
But this wasn’t a problem limited to her platform alone. In fact, other candidates were worse offenders.
After Bossov, Chris Stillwell’s experience as an SA senator makes him the second-best pick for EVP. He showed institutional knowledge and the ability to execute plans, and has already started taking meetings to lay the groundwork for his platform. But unlike Bossov, his ideas only regarded a small portion of the student body. His main goal was to provide some student veterans with priority registration, which is respectable, but would serve just 300 students. There are 25,000 students at GW.
And as an SA senator, Stillwell’s main accomplishment has been shrouded in secrecy. He has refused to release a report that would outline the feasibility of putting a student on the Board of Trustees, GW’s top governing body. He said he fears that releasing it would be viewed as a “political stunt.”
He also declined to disclose the names of administrators with whom he’d been working on his veterans priority registration initiative.
To run a campaign full of secrets is the true political stunt. Voters should be able to judge Stillwell on what we consider his main SA initiative. Neither the editorial board nor the student body can judge a candidate for election if he fails to be fully transparent.
Paul Lisbon’s laundry list of goals to overhaul Gelman Library, campus dining and GWork were well-intentioned and more student-focused than Stillwell’s. But they stray toward wild idealism.
Many of his goals were predicated on the belief that GW is a fundraising powerhouse with plenty of cashflow to invest in student life. While GW is a wealthy university, it is also battling budget constraints and high debt. To convince administrators to spend money on students, SA leaders need a razor-sharp understanding of how the institution works – knowledge Lisbon failed to display.
Ian Crueldad’s ideas did not acknowledge past or even current SA initiatives either, and they showed a similar disregard for the University’s finances. His platform was rooted in cutting costs for students, but with no ideas of how to make up the University’s losses. From overhauling dining to subsidizing international student expenses, the plans were radical and lacked any hint of understanding of their impact on the University.
Of all the candidates, we have the most confidence in Bossov’s goals. They best fall in line with those of the presidential candidates, especially Gumas’. She also demonstrates an ability to take what she’s learned from serving the SA and put it toward an administration of her own. If she focuses her energy on advancing a president’s better-organized agenda while reevaluating her own goals for the SA senate, she’ll make a successful executive vice president.
Vote for Bossov for SA executive vice president Wednesday or Thursday.
The Hatchet’s editorial board for endorsements included: contributing opinions editor Jacob Garber, director of external affairs Josh Perlman, design editor Jenna Bernick, copy editor Robin Jones Kerr, copy editor Rachel Smilan-Goldstein, assistant design editor Sophie McTear and contributing culture editor Emily Holland. Opinions editor Justin Peligri recused himself from the endorsement process.
