The Student Association is working with the theme “Transitions” this year to apply to Dr. McLarty becoming Harding’s new president and also to the student body as a whole. According to senior Kelli Mott secretary of the SA, one of the goals of the SA this year is for students to get acquainted with Dr. McLarty and vice versa.
The SA goes through several changes each year as new people are elected into officer positions. The freshmen are the only class to have an election for the representatives of their class in the fall for one men’s and one women’s representative.
“They have to get a page filled out with 50 signatures,” Mott said. “And then they were not allowed to start campaigning until the Sunday before the elections. There is no limit to the number of students that can run for the representative position.”
According to Mott, the SA has all different kinds of personalities to bring to the team. Mott said that they were really just looking for freshmen that are comfortable in a leadership position and enthusiastic about the school. Freshman Madie McGuire said the representative she would vote for would be someone that could rely on God in the decisions they were going to make.
“I think that it is cool that since we do go to Harding and it is a Christian university they can use God when they are making these choices,” McGuire said.
Freshman male representative Cody Stubblefield wanted to have a voice for the SA because he has a problem with people that complain about something and then do nothing about it and he loved the idea of getting people involved. Cody Stubblefield used word of mouth and direct interaction when campaigning.
“I was very minimal in my campaigning,” Stubblefield said. “I had a few signs but I really just tried to meet and talk with as many people as I could.”
Libbie Turner, freshman women’s representative, used more advertising when campaigning. According to Turner, her friends helped a lot by getting all the posters made and creating a Twitter and Instagram account in her favor. Turner explained that her central theme for representing the freshmen is for everyone to have a sense of identity.
“Our generation is about being real and having your own identity, and that is something that I love to do,” Turner said. “I like to bring my real self when meeting people and I want people to know this is me and this is what I am for. I think that people feel the same way and I think this is a healthy mindset when having a representative for a freshman class.”
According to both new freshman representatives, they are extremely excited about getting to work with the SA.
” I thank the freshman class for giving me the chance to serve them in this position,” Stubblefield said. “I hope that the student body in general will be excited about what the SA has to do this year.”
