There were four tickets for student body president and vice president in last year’s Student Government election. This year, students had just two options — the current student body vice president or an abstention.
The lack of competition in this year’s campaign was emblematic of apathy within Student Government and in the campus community as a whole. In this session of Student Government, only 63 of the available 72 seats were filled. The Senate has not been full since before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half a decade ago.
This is an embarrassing reflection of the NC State community’s participation in University happenings, and it’s an indictment of the inconsequential nature of the state of today’s Student Government.
The student body president holds a seat on the NC State board of trustees. This is the only seat on the University’s most powerful body that is held by a student, and it should be a coveted role: The student body president is granted the privilege of representing the interests of the entire student body to the University’s most influential individuals. Students squander this great potential to have their voices heard when they allow the position to essentially be handed to an individual uncontested. It’s detrimental to meaningful advocacy on behalf of the student body.
And Student Government doesn’t just advocate at the University level, it advocates to the UNC System. When UNC System President Peter Hans announced plans to ban Yik Yak from campus networks across the UNC System on Thursday — much to the chagrin of some students — he specifically cited student body presidents as playing a pivotal role in this move.
“I had never heard of these apps until a group of student body presidents told us about their ubiquitous presence on campus,” Hans said.
Members of our Student Government are part of the UNC System’s Association of Student Governments, and the ASG president represents students to the Board of Governors. Student input at the University level can impact changes enacted at public universities across the state, if you even care.
The singular campaign for student body president left much to be desired. Markert and Carreno’s platform clearly existed in the context of being uncontested — it offered glib musings on campus issues but lacked effective, well-thought plans to truly tackle them. 2023’s plethora of campaigns created extensive discourse on a multitude of issues and provided students with a variety of choices.
While there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with Markert and Carreno’s platform, it was simply too broad to adequately address any of the issues that face campus today. Blanket statements and unspecific goals encouraged a low bar of achievement in line with the already meager expectations of our student representatives. This sentiment extended to student senator campaigns, which were equally ambiguous and clouded with political buzzwords.
This is not about the candidates themselves. It’s about a broader trend of a lack of engagement with the very avenue students are given to drive change.
Go to a Student Senate meeting. Meet with student body officers or senators about your concerns. It’s Technician’s role to hold Student Government accountable and keep campus informed, but to create a sincere and productive body that can aptly represent the varied interests of students, we need more participation from the NC State community.
With strong commitment from diverse student perspectives, Student Government can be a powerful catalyst for change on campus. Technician hopes to see more candidates in the future.
In the meantime, we’d be remiss to not mention another powerful platform for the student voice: Technician.
Technician endeavors to be a meeting place for campus opinions, and we always welcome guest submissions. To learn more about our submissions guidelines, visit our website.
