“Welcome to the world of politics,” Brett Nadrich (SFS `12) said.
Hoping to represent Village C West’s Y-Wing, Nadrich is one of 73 students running for the 36 Georgetown University Student Assembly Senate seats. The candidates began their campaigns on Tuesday with a flurry of flyers, posters, and Facebook groups.
The GUSA Senate communicates with administrators about University policy and allocates funds to select activities.
Of the 73 candidates, 58 are male and 15 are female; 31 are freshmen. According to Sophia Behnia (COL `09), who is overseeing the election as a member of the Senior Class Committee, this year’s demographics are similar to those of past years. Although last spring issues with instant-runoff voting complicated the GUSA presidential elections and prompted the election commissioner to hold a run-off election, Behnia said she does not anticipate problems this semester.
Dave Coghlan (SFS `11), who hopes to represent Village B apartments 46 through 90, said that GUSA’s track record on improving wireless access and reviewing the alcohol policy, two things he plans to work on if elected, has been unimpressive.
Coghlan has already seen posters belonging to his opponent, Tyler Stone (COL `09), dotting Village B.
“‘Vote for Stone, hard as a rock.’ It’s catchy, but it’s not wireless,” Coghlan said.
Stone, who ran unsuccessfully for GUSA Vice President last spring, is also disappointed in GUSA’s record, especially regarding student safety. (Full disclosure: Stone used to be a staff writer for the Voice.)
“It’s mind boggling, it really is,” Stone said. “DPS is undertrained. DPS is underequipped. DPS needs guns, I think.”
Stone said GUSA has not done anything in its power to lobby for better student security. Stone also takes issue with Georgetown’s administration, which he said is too detached from students.
“GUSA’s function is like a glorified lobbying position,” he said.
Many freshman candidates said that their involvement with student government in high school piqued their interest in running for GUSA.
Chris Pigott (COL `12), who is running to represent Darnall’s first, second, and third floors said that since freshman candidates have only been on campus for a few weeks, they were more likely to campaign on problems they have personally encountered.
“I definitely think there’s favoritism in the way facilities treats housing,” Pigott said. “We have things in Darnall—washers, dryers—that they just won’t fix. I don’t like to walk to Darnall either, but I spent four hours doing my laundry this morning. Geez!”
In the week leading up to the elections on September 23, most candidates said they plan to go door-to-door in their districts, including Mark Schmidt (SFS `12), who said he hopes to meet with everyone on Darnall’s fourth, fifth, and sixth floors.
Pigott and Nadrich said they plan to “shower” their respective dorms with quartersheets of paper, which candidates are allowed to distribute limitlessly. By contrast, they are limited to seven eight by eleven posters.
Last weekend candidates were mistakenly informed that they could not campaign online. Candidates have since been informed that they can campaign using Facebook, e-mail, and other types of online communication.
But either way, Sam Hyman (COL `12) wasn’t bothered. He said he favored running a door-to-door campaign for New South 1 and 2.
“I care about listening to people, otherwise I’m just a guy with a title behind my name,” Hyman said. “I’d rather go up to people, say hi, sit down, have a glass of sweet tea, and talk things over.”
