The Student Body President election season is an exciting time on the TKC campus. It gives candidates the opportunity to praise what they love about this college and suggest reforms for problems they perceive. It also gives all students the opportunity to support the candidate with whom they agree the most or whose proposals they find appealing. Often, candidates’ desires to win support combined with voters’ desires to show their support results in public endorsements. However, we have decided not to engage in this campaign tradition this year, and we offer the following justifications:

Public endorsements reveal that someone is staunchly for one candidate, thereby creating the impression that they are against any other candidate.
This campaign features only two candidates, so any official endorsement is divisive, constituting a public acceptance of one candidate and creating the impression of rejection of the other.
Both of our platforms emphasize uniting the student body and pursuing Christian love. Divisive endorsements do not help achieve either of these ends.

We add that endorsements themselves are not inherently bad, and we do not impugn their use in past campaigns by declining to use them in this one. This is a unique election in that there are only two candidates, and we believe that in this unique situation, endorsements pose a threat to the unity and Christian life we desire for the student body. With these things in mind, we will neither pursue nor post public endorsements during the 2017 Student Body President campaign. Rather than telling you who has chosen one of us over the other, we would like to focus on our specific proposals. We have different ideas, even if we have similar ends, and there is a lot to talk about.

In order to talk about these ideas, we invite you to join us at campaign events. These events include:

“Stew with Stu" Q&A session on Monday, February 13, at 5:30 PM in Room 522
"Brew with Stu" Q&A session on Wednesday, February 15 at 12:00 PM in Room 628
“Open Mike” Q&A session on Wednesday, February 15 at 12:00pm in the Fishbowl
The SBP Debate on Thursday, February 16 at 12:15 PM in the City Room
The SBP Bananza on Friday, February 17 at 12:15 PM in the City Room
“Open Mike” Q&A session on Monday, February 20 at 4:30pm in the Fishbowl
Final speeches on Tuesday, February 21 at 12:15 PM in the City Room

Finally, vote! The best endorsement either of us can ask from you is your vote. Voting opens after final speeches on Tuesday, February 21, and ends on Wednesday, February 22 at 11:59 PM.

Whoever wins this campaign, we look forward to serving a unified Student Body during the 2017-2018 school year.

Thank you,

Stuart Clay and Michael Martinez

Approved and published by the Empire State Tribune's Editor-in-Chief Michael Sheetz.

Endorsements: A Letter from the Student Body President Candidates