Elections and reflections

With Grand Marshal Week quickly approaching, students should be starting to look at candidates and evaluate what they would like to see out of next year’s student government. Part of that process involves reflecting on what the past year’s student government has and has not accomplished.

This year’s GM, Kara Chesal ’09, had a leadership role in the organization of the “Uprise at Five!” rally, which provided students with a peaceful way to come together and make a statement to the administration. In response to recent events on campus, Chesal—with the help of members of the Student Senate, the Residence Hall Association, greek life, and Residence Life—planned the event in just over 24 hours.

There are varying opinions about whether or not this was the correct response, or even if the timing of the event was appropriate, but it is hard to deny that the rally communicated that many students want change. The Senate passed a resolution detailing what Chesal should inquire about in her meeting with President Shirley Ann Jackson and Chief of Staff and Associate Vice President for Policy and Planning Laban Coblentz following the “Uprise.” After that meeting, however, Chesal has taken no further action as follow-through and dropped the ball in terms of dealing with the grievances students raised through the rally. While The Poly understands she may have received some new information that is the stimulus for this behavior, we feel that it is her duty as GM to inform the rest of the student body of any developments.

The student body should keep these recent developments in mind when doing its research on candidates. The Poly has interviewed the candidates for GM and reached our own conclusions on the quality of the candidates. The student body must now rise to the occasion and become informed about each candidate and his platform. The RPI community is changing as this country adapts to these turbulent economic times, and students need to select the candidate they believe best-suited to work within this environment and grow into the position.