SBP Election Ballots Launched after Candidates Give Final Speeches
Student Body Presidential candidates presented their final speeches during Monday’s lunch hour, opening up elections to students which will run until midnight tomorrow.
Wilson reminded students that the SBP must be a facilitator and an advocate for students, who looks to both the past and the present. In his time on the executive team, he said he has helped cast a vision for the future that was shaped by voices of the past.
Spiritual life comes organically, Wilson explained.
“We cannot centrally plan for spiritual life,” Wilson said, using terms he picked up in Pincin’s economics courses. “It will be the local knowledge that drives us forward.”
He called the students at The King's College to choose a good name above the riches of politics.
His speech reminding students that his platform aims to work with structures that King’s already has in place. He believes that our community can be improved by simplifying the current structures.
In comment to his contender Smith, Wilson said that many of the Chamberlain flaws are cultural flaws, not structural ones.
Wilson argued that students feel most connected when they are represented, and for this to happen, there must be someone who is speaking on the student’s behalf.
Following Wilson, Brandon Smith's speech reflected on his early time at The King’s College, mentioning his Inviso experience, and how he never planned to step onto the King’s campus again. It wasn’t until he began to feel loved and listened to by members of his house that he started feeling comfortable at The King’s College.
“I cannot dictate things,” Smith said, “but I can listen and give my two cents on issues.”
Elle Rogers began with an analogy she learned from a teacher, in which there is no culture but instead only artifacts. Rogers was once a freshman student who wanted to do everything possible, until the students of King’s showed her that reality may be better than unattainable dreams. It was the artifacts of her freshman year that she says turned her heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
Rogers focused her speech on the idea that The King’s College has outgrown its structures in terms of physical size as well as with student enrollment. Executive teams bear more of a burden than any student should have to carry and organization leaders are left unequipped to deal with student issues because of a lack of training and funding.
“We all have something to offer each other,” Rogers said, “and it’s time to provide structured ways and forms for us.”
Rogers said that there are issues that the school faces that the Council just won’t take up. There are students who thrive within the house system, but some end up falling through the cracks. Many students find their place within organizations, which is why these organizations should be allowed a greater voice.
Rogers said that we have a chance this year to build a culture, a culture of belonging, where all students have a voice and get what they deserve.
Students were sent ballots through their student email addresses and will be able to cast their votes until midnight tomorrow.