It is almost that time of the year again — highly-involved students will begin speaking loudly and publicly about how you should vote for them instead of the next Ivan Allen student. But looking back on the tenure of outgoing SGA President Nagela Nukuna and Vice President Shane Mudrinich, it is difficult to determine whether their campaign promises have been kept.
While noble pursuits, many items listed on Nukuna and Mudrinich’s platform, including “Encouraging healthy habits for holistic and personal success” and “Improving expectations between students and professors,” remain vague and have no deliverable results. There is no conclusive way to hold Nukuna and Mudrinich accountable for potentially not completing these goals because there was never a concrete goal to fulfill.
Candidates in the future need to accurately represent what is feasible to achieve. It does the campus no good when those running for SGA office make lofty promises and fail to get any of it done. An example from the current administration is the push to create a hammock garden, which has been ongoing for a decent amount of time. The funding was allocated back in December of last year, but no tangible results have been made. If SGA leaders are unable to accomplish tasks such as this within reasonable periods of time, why is it that candidates for president repeatedly are offering numerous drastic and sweeping changes to campus? If progress is being made, where is the transparency?
Responsible candidates will meet with relevant organizations on campus to determine whether what they want to achieve is reasonable. If it is not, misleading the student body with infeasible or unclear promises only serves to discourage — to an even greater extent — what is already an apathetic voting pool.