Two More Students are Confirmed as SBP Candidates
Koby Jackson poses for his campaign photos taken by Angel Boyd
Koby Jackson, a junior Humanities major from Mobile, Ala., and Edward “Eddie” Vanzandt, a junior studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, were approved by Dean David Leedy as candidates for the Student Body Presidential race for the 2019-2020 academic year.
“King’s is where I’ve found my closest friends. I love my actual family to the point where I would do anything for them and I have that same spirit of love and compassion for the people I have met here at this school. I feel that I can bring that love into my role as student body president,” Jackson said.
Jackson has held multiple leadership roles during his time at The King’s College: Freshmen year he co-founded and served as vice-president of The Table, was elected research coordinator for the debate team going into fall of 2017, is the current hospitality coordinator for Refuge, works for Student Services and alongside Cru to lead a tutoring program on Tuesdays.
“All of my leadership roles taught me how I can help exemplify and empower others. I get joy from watching others prosper– watching the light shine through people is rewarding to me,” said Jackson.
Jackson’s believes The King’s College is a great community that has potential to be better. Through his platform he hopes to strengthen the school by continuing to seek Christ. His platform, S.E.E.K., is the way in which he wants to build up King’s and our student body.
“My platform consists of serving, empowering, encouraging, and knowing. It is a backwards acronym. You need to know someone well to encourage them and then you know how to empower them. Once you know them and are empowering them you can serve together and serve each other well,” Jackson added.
Through S.E.E.K. Jackson has chosen several key objectives he wants to focus on during his time in office, such as communication.
“I think as a community we do a great job at being open to conversations. However, I think more open means of communication throughout branches of the school and more opportunities for our school to engage with one another across communities and orgs will help us have more compassion and become a better community. We have an opportunity to have a very healthy community because we are such a small school,” said Jackson.
Koby Jackson poses for his campaign photos taken by Angel Boyd
Jackson believes that the community will be able to better prosper and grow if people do more to support and empower students.
“We should highlight students in the student body in a public sense such as a bulletin so our community gets to know someone they wouldn't have interacted with before,” Jackson said. “I also want to implement round-tables with the cabinet so members of the student body and orgs can directly talk with cabinet members and have a voice.”
He also plans to promote associate elections for houses.
“If we hold elections for the associates it’ll give them more of a sense of accountability to the houses. It’ll help make the houses stronger and give more support to the exec teams as well,” Jackson said.
Jackson will add on-campus days of service so students have more opportunities to serve the people in our community. He plans to have houses host specific drives such as a canned food drives or jean drives. He believes these days will be meaningful opportunities for people to learn to work with one another and focus on serving others.
“As your Student Body President, I will diligently listen and faithfully work alongside you to strengthen our communities as we continue our pursuit to Christ,” Jackson wrote in his platform.
Vanzandt has not responded to requests from the Empire State Tribune.
He was the chamberlain of the House of C.S. Lewis in 2017-2018 and is the current King’s Debate Society Treasurer.
In Vanzandt’s platform, he says that he has, “reservations about how [the honor code] is enforced in practice and believe that it’s time for change.” He later added that he will actively work to foster a culture that is transparent, equitable, and merciful.”
He also made a plan for hierarchy within the student organization system.
“I envision a hierarchy of equals, where smaller up-and-coming student groups fast-track Council recognition by organizing themselves as self-funded or unfunded clubs, where medium-sized organizations feel respected by and fairly represented in the Council, and where larger organizations like Mock Trial and Refuge may break off and join separate departments like Academic Affairs and Spiritual Life, gaining greater autonomy.”
Three other candidates, Jennifer Ingraham, Josiah Simons, and Blake Ashley, have been approved by Leedy to be official candidates for the Student Body President Race, according to the official announcement sent to students by the Council on Friday.
Bernadette Berdychowski has contributed to parts of this article.