The Harding University Student Association announced Tyler Gentry, a senior exercise science major, as the next SA president with 53.4 percent victory on Wednesday. Of the total 1,557 votes, Gentry received 831.
Compared to the 982 votes in 2011, more than 1,500 students out of the 3,866 undergraduate student body participated in the 2013-14 election through Pipeline, making a 40.3 voter turnout percentage.
According to the American Student Government Association, the national average turnout among all types of institutions is 4 percent. While private colleges and universities are between 15-20 percent, the average turnout for public colleges and universities is about 10-15 percent as well as community and technical colleges being under 2 percent.
“We have an incredible turnout,” said current SA President Will Waldron. “Most schools struggle to get close to 10 percent, but our student body really showed up this year and did a great job. I’m proud of them for being a part of the process and everything.”
Waldron said he met with all the presidential candidates April 7 to ensure they understood the whole campaigning procedure and to oversee that there was no negative campaigning against other candidates, which never occurred.
“As a matter of fact, you can talk to any one of the candidates,” Waldron said. “They had breakfast together on Monday morning, and it’s something that I feel like a lot of schools would do. But I’m very proud of the four of them for enjoying each other’s company, working together and really getting to know one another.”
Regarding the actual voting, Waldron said he intentionally put it more on the candidates and let them carry out nontraditional campaigning such as swiping cards at cafeteria and hanging out in the student center and letting people know who they were instead of just the signs and the chalk.
“Harding is a very relational school, so if you make your campaigning about relationships, I think that is more effective,” Waldron said. “You’re not going to be able to convince someone you don’t know to go and vote. But if you can convince your close friends to go vote and they convince their friends to go and vote, then it will kind of fill out (the whole process).”
