Written by Blake Mathews; Carrie Martin
The race for the 2010-11 Student Association is primed to start next Sunday and will likely conclude Friday, Apr. 9, with the election of the next SA president.
The list of candidates for officer positions was finalized last Wednesday. Students interested in running for office had to submit an application, pass an academic screening process and collect 50 signatures to be considered eligible.
Four upcoming seniors are in the running to replace current SA president Jordan Stanley: Steven Ramsey, Nik Arezina, Arsenio Moss and Johnathan Dollen. Running for vice president are Gabrielle Pruitt and Jonghwa Lee. The office of treasurer is being pursued by four candidates, and two students are running for secretary.
No campaigning will be allowed before 5 p.m. Sunday. After that, candidates will be allowed to place posters, create Facebook groups and otherwise do their best to win the vote of the student body. In chapel Monday, the four presidential candidates will answer questions prepared by the current SA and asked by Stanley. This will be the first occasion that the student body will have to evaluate all four candidates, Stanley said, but it will not be the last. An extended Q&A session and debate will be held in the Administration Auditorium at 7 p.m. Monday night, when students will be able to ask their own questions.
The campaigning will continue through Tuesday, and at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, voting will open on Pipeline and stay open for 24 hours. A candidate will need at least 50 percent of the votes to win outright; if no one gets 50 percent, a runoff between the two candidates with the most votes will be held Friday.
Stanley said that, in light of the recounts and multiple runoffs of last years SA election, he hopes the officers for next year will be finalized by the end of Friday.
Steven Ramsey, a finance major hailing from Jonesboro, Ark., said he is running for SA president because he wants to “enable more collaboration between [students and professors] so that each party reaches a better place.”
Ramsey said he would like to see academic student boards in every department. These proposed boards would facilitate the sharing of ideas and perspectives between professors and teachers.
Arsenio Moss is a psychology major from the Bahamas. He said he believes he isthe best candidate because of his three years of prior service on the SA, one of which he spent as treasurer.
Moss also said he would use his organizational skills to delegate responsibility to others, rather than trying to run the SA himself.
“I believe that once communication is improved, things can happen effectively,” Moss said.
Nik Arezina promoted himself as a team player with SA experience and an all-around friendly person.
“I am genuinely interested in getting to know every single person on campus,” he said.
Arezina said he would work on offering more opportunities for new students to identify with and find a place in the growing Harding student body.
Bringing some social club experience to the table is finance and economics major John Dollen.
He is currently the president of Kyodai.
Though he has no concrete plans yet, Dollen said he believes in “thinking big.”
“We have been blessed with great opportunities, and I want to see us utilize every one of them,” he said.
