2008 Woodie Awards
SGA presidential debate held
John DeBruicker
Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: News & Features
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Each ticket was given two minutes for opening statements, then two minutes to answer five questions addressed to all the tickets, followed by two minutes to answer a question on their own specific platform. Closing remarks were limited to four minutes each.
Each ticket's platform stressed the importance of town-gown relations, communication between students and the SGA and increasing the dialogue between student groups on campus. Candidates answered questions regarding their take on the current state of the President Council, the state of College-wide traditions, the social scene and their personal reasons for running.
Poulos-Crim emphasized improving the College's sense of community, expanding the SGA Executive Board and opening its meetings up to all students. Their idea of the new Exec Board would feature a Head Resident representative and a Student Programming Board representative. "I definitely don't see this as an increase in bureaucracy," Poulos said. "I think that Student Government can benefit from having that extra voice from the dorms to come and tell us what people are thinking and have more communication come through the Exec Board so we can make better decisions."
They also talked about reviving the SGA Diversity Conference, including representatives from the surrounding community and nearby colleges to widen the scope of SGA's decision making process. Though Poulos has served on PC for two years, this ticket represents the least overall SGA experience as Crim is only in his second year on campus. They made mention of Poulos's hailing from Maine and how both his parents are Colby alumni.
Even more than the other tickets, Frechette-Boyce especially underscored the need for SGA and SPB interaction. Though they acknowledged that the two branches of government were separated for a reason in 2001, they felt that a creation of a member exchange program between SGA and SPB in which a member from one group would sit in on the other group's meetings could make each group more effective. "If there is at least some presence of SGA on SPB and vice versa, then the ideas and the resources will be able to flow much more freely between these organizations," Frechette said. They envisioned benefit events that could be planned more easily if the two organizations worked more closely together. Boyce talked about smaller student groups working together to pool their budgets to plan larger events than individual groups could.
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