King’s Students Contemplating Recent House Nominations

This year’s nominations are sparking various levels of interest amongst the 10 Houses

Over the past two weeks, students have been nominating fellow House members to Executive Team positions.

While some houses have had trouble obtaining nominations, many have found that the overall number of nominated candidates this year has either increased or remained stable in comparison to last year's elections.

This year's large incoming class has contributed to the current number of nominations. With larger numbers of freshman and transfer students in each house, some executive teams have found greater numbers of nominees for each position.

Some houses, including Thatcher, Bonhoeffer, and Lewis, have already had their nominations. All three of these houses have had high numbers of nominations this year compared to those of last year.

Bonhoeffer President Mitchell Hailstone said that members have expressed high interest in nominations.

While last year only two people ran for president, this year five are running.

"All are experienced, qualified, and good options for president. So it's really going to be interesting to see how that works itself out," he says.

Lewis had its nominations last Friday as well and experienced a similar outcome.

"We had a ton of nominations; I think our lowest number of nominations was 6 for president," said Lewis Chamberlain Greg Dubois.

In addition, Dubois said they had six nominated for Chamberlain, between 8 and 9 for Helmsman and even greater numbers for the other three executive positions.

The House of Margaret Thatcher has had both its nominations and elections, and Helmsman Amber Bergey (‘11) said that she is excited about new developments in the house. This year, the house also met privately with candidates to discuss candidate strengths and weaknesses, and suggest strategies for improvement. She said the elections went well.

While the House of Thatcher has had elections and most other houses have already had their nominations, several others, including Truth and Churchill, have yet to nominate candidates. But both houses anticipate levels of interest and cooperation similar to that of past years.

"I feel like last year I heard more people talking about it," says Truth President Michelle Lambdin (‘12).

"There were more people I heard talking about whether...they were considering the positions. This year I don't think I've heard there is much talk about it, but now as we're getting closer...it sounds like about the same as what we've had in the past—at least 2 or three people in each position that are willing to run..."

Other houses anticipate difficulty.

Churchill Helmsman David Linamen ('13) said that he doesn't think there will be much change in the nature of house leadership between this and next year.

Thus far, Churchill's exec team has explained leadership roles to members and requested that interested members contact current exec team members about the positions they would like to fulfill.

Linamen believes the house will continue to face difficulties in finding new leadership until house structure problems are remedied.