2008 Woodie Awards
Hutton-Haysbert for GUSA executives
The Independent's endorsement
Issue date: 2/18/03 Section: Editorials
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This week marks the beginning of another election cycle for the esteemed offices of president and vice president of the Georgetown University Student Association. With the issue of the Yard firmly put out to pasture, this year’s campaigns are free to focus solely on student life issues. This year’s candidates have come forward with platforms based around a series of tangible goals. The theme of all three campaigns is building a tighter, more cohesive campus community, which is certainly an admirable sentiment, but a very difficult goal to achieve in practice. The ticket that demonstrates the most realistic, yet comprehensive plan is the Rob Hutton – Nazareth Haysbert team, which is why The Independent has chosen to endorse this pair.
Hutton and Haysbert stand out in terms of both the scope of their proposals and their commitment to accomplishing these goals. They propose a wide range of concrete ideas to improve student life, GUSA’s relationship with the administration and the structure of GUSA. They offer ideas ranging from retreats and programs targeted at sophomores to a restructuring of the current GUSA advocacy committee system to the creation of an administrative student ombudsman position to meet these goals. Also, Hutton and Haysbert propose concrete solutions to long-standing problems, such as that of the 24-hour lockdown policy, which is a vast improvement on other, more vague, campaigns’ promises to continue fighting the administration on this matter.
The other two candidate teams, Brian Morgenstern and Steve de Man, and Stephen Palmese and Tim Nunziata, do not offer the same depth of both ideas and spirit that Hutton and Haysbert do. One of the best proposals Morgenstern and de Man offer is an alumni connection website, which could help the constant problem of improving alumni-University relations. However, while Morgenstern and de Man have a great deal of knowledge about the GUSA system, they, and in particular, Morgenstern, seem too deeply entrenched in that selfsame bureaucracy. Haysbert and Hutton are both class representatives, but seem open to changing the system to make it more efficient. Palmese and Nunziata do not present any concrete ideas that seem feasible; their campaign focuses around a bowling alley in New South, fund-raising for GUSA through corporate donations and the vague notion of “community building.”
Hutton and Haysbert stand out in terms of both the scope of their proposals and their commitment to accomplishing these goals. They propose a wide range of concrete ideas to improve student life, GUSA’s relationship with the administration and the structure of GUSA. They offer ideas ranging from retreats and programs targeted at sophomores to a restructuring of the current GUSA advocacy committee system to the creation of an administrative student ombudsman position to meet these goals. Also, Hutton and Haysbert propose concrete solutions to long-standing problems, such as that of the 24-hour lockdown policy, which is a vast improvement on other, more vague, campaigns’ promises to continue fighting the administration on this matter.
The other two candidate teams, Brian Morgenstern and Steve de Man, and Stephen Palmese and Tim Nunziata, do not offer the same depth of both ideas and spirit that Hutton and Haysbert do. One of the best proposals Morgenstern and de Man offer is an alumni connection website, which could help the constant problem of improving alumni-University relations. However, while Morgenstern and de Man have a great deal of knowledge about the GUSA system, they, and in particular, Morgenstern, seem too deeply entrenched in that selfsame bureaucracy. Haysbert and Hutton are both class representatives, but seem open to changing the system to make it more efficient. Palmese and Nunziata do not present any concrete ideas that seem feasible; their campaign focuses around a bowling alley in New South, fund-raising for GUSA through corporate donations and the vague notion of “community building.”