Today at noon, students will have the opportunity to elect the next person who will represent them as a whole. We encourage you to take part. The next student body president will be the face of the student population and will have the power to make some big decisions. 

“You’re a conduit of information from students to administration to alumni,” current Student Body President Andy Walsh told Technician. “You have a really big voice at the table. A lot of other universities don’t let students have the voice that we have. Students should really rally around having that voice. It’s special.” 

The unofficial motto of this year’s candidates is “students first.” Looking back, though, it seems as if this clichéd phrase has become the veil behind which tuition has increased while student government transparency has decreased. At times, student body presidents have been nothing more than mascots for N.C. State. These chief executives go down in history, and we want someone who will make a name for themselves and our University. 

But we’ll quickly hop off our soapbox. There are still (can we say surprisingly?) three candidates for student body president. Of those three, we, as an editorial board, endorse Lauryn Collier. We’ve long pleaded that Student Government become more transparent, and Collier seems like the girl to take us there. 

“I like to think I’m very visible [on campus],” Collier said in a February interview with Technician. “I’m always on campus even though I live off campus. I’m here all day every day even on the weekends and during breaks.”

That’s the attitude we want in our next SBP. Of course, we like her for other things too, such as her goal of communication among the various colleges, her excellent track record as Union Activities Board president and her clear desire to put the student population first — we’ll still hold on to our idealistic tendencies here.

“As student body president . . . you represent all the students all the time,” Collier told Technician. 

She’s right, and we think she’d be great at it. 

But that’s just our opinion. From noon today to noon tomorrow, you can voice yours.