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BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | Published April 24, 2008 — Updated December 03, 2008 23:13

This week, a political frenzy consumed the campus as students prepared to participate in not one, but two elections. Last Friday, the Student Council presidential candidates held a second debate in the Intercultural Center to continue to answer students’ questions about important issues in the run-up to the Student Council election, which coincided with the contentious Pennsylvania primary election on Tuesday.

This year’s presidential candidates, Paul Apollo ’09, Yongjun Heo ’09 and Randall Johnston ’09 took turns addressing specific questions in a debate moderated by current Student Council Financial Aid Policy Representative Sarah Roberts ’08.

The candidates were asked to introduce themselves by choosing one word that best describes them. Responses to subsequent questions were restricted to two minutes each.

Roberts opened the debate by asking the candidates about what they hoped students would get out of the debate.

The candidates expressed the general expectation that students should feel free to raise questions or concerns pertaining to the candidates’ platforms as well as share their aspirations for the college’s future, in light of the 2020 long-term planning campaign.

Concerns about issues such as diversity, difference and the role of the IC/BCC community surfaced in several questions posed by students over the course of the debate.

Attendees asked the candidates to elaborate on their suitability for the role of representative liaison between the student body and the administration, and some students also raised issues of accountability.

Romane Paul ’10 asked what each candidate would do to cultivate a strong, working relationship between Student Council and the IC/BCC community, as well as which concerns of the IC/BCC community they would prioritize as most urgent.

Most candidates agreed that the concerns of the IC/BCC community were representative of the greater student body’s concerns and expressed the need to address their interests in the execution of the 2020 campaign.

“I would say the IC/BCC concerns are whether they are going to be heard for 2020,” Heo, who described himself as determined, said. “The IC/BCC concerns are not restricted to the IC/BCC … These are issues that affect everyone and I need to make sure those concerns are heard next year. It’s personal that I be an advocate for these concerns.”

Johnston, who appeared via Skype and described herself as ambitious/motivated, cited her previous experience on student government as evidence of her preparedness to facilitate dialog with members of the IC/BCC community. “[On Student Council] I set up meetings with leaders of the IC/BCC … That is one thing I will continue to do,” Johnston said. “The IC/BCC community is concerned about getting their voices heard … especially in the 2020 planning process.”

In addition to these answers, Apollo, who described himself as empathetic addressed the fact that he felt that Student Council had yet to earn the trust of the IC/BCC community.

“Student Council this semester and last semester had meetings for IC/BCC leaders, but no one showed up,” Apollo said.

“I think the reason is because Student Council hasn’t worked enough to earn the trust of the IC/BCC. Why should they come? I think Student Council needs to show that we’re willing to listen to those demands and to change things as soon as possible,” he said.

The candidates equally stressed the importance of maintaining an open and communicative relationship with the IC/BCC community by holding meetings with leaders of these communities to ensure that their demands are being attended to.

Both Johnston and Heo suggested faculty and the administration presence at these meetings, while both Apollo and Heo believed that Student Council members should work more effectively as both separate and conjoined units and that individuals’ duties should not be limited to their job descriptions.

“Student Council needs to have a few goals in mind, needs to be in charge, needs to have deadlines,” Heo said. “They should aspire towards one specific goal as a body … They need to work together to get one thing done while individual members get more things done that are specific to the individual job requirements.”

Another student who attended the event, Fletcher Coleman ’09, asked a question specifically addressing the issue of class and how candidates would ensure that the needs of students from all class backgrounds are met. He spoke about the recent “No Loans” policy adopted by the college and raised his concern that the initiative may not be equally advantageous for all students, nor was the proposal sufficiently publicized to the student body prior to its implementation.

All three candidates affirmed the importance of supporting initiatives such as need-blind admissions for international students and ensuring that orientation workshops and campus events more directly address current class issues.

However, candidates diverged on the issue of the work-study component.

Johnston’s objections to the work-study requirement are informed by her personal experience with financial aid, as she is obligated to continue to pay this portion of her tuition while studying abroad in Spain.

“I can relate to this because I can’t work while I’m in Spain, but I still have to pay the work-study component. I think that it’s unreasonable,” she said. “Right now, my concrete goal is eliminating the work-study component for students who are abroad and can’t work.”

Although Heo believed that campus jobs can and should continue to exist for students who want and need them, he supported the possibility of replacing the work-study component with scholarships instead. Heo spoke of the need to alleviate the burden on students who are forced to compromise their academic performance by juggling multiple jobs.

“I worked three jobs my freshman year, and still do, while I knew that … another friend was doing his organic chemistry,” he said. “There’s a difference between an A- and a B+. This is something that affects lower income families.”

Apollo addressed the question from his own working-class background experience. He believed that what students of similar backgrounds did not want was for work-study to be eliminated, as they enjoyed knowing that they were at least partially paying and earning their education.

“I am actually considered wealthy where I come from, [but I am] from a poor background and definitely understand the needs of poor students at Swarthmore,” he said. “I can say that almost universally people of poor backgrounds want to feel that they’ve worked for what they have … I’m for decreasing the work component but certainly not eliminating it.”

Additional questions were raised asked about the status of last year’s proposal for a three-day Thanksgiving break equivalent in the spring, an initiative that receded from the council’s agenda due to concerns about its practicality.

Some students expressed concern that this and other initiatives have either dropped off of the council’s radar or are no longer being aired in a public forum. “A lot of the initiatives proposed by Student Council have not died or are still being worked on or are just not public anymore,” Apollo said. “Sometime it has been discerned that there was no student support for a specific initiative anymore.”

Students also asked the candidates to elaborate on the possibility of extending Student Council meeting times if current Student Council meeting times were felt to be insufficient.

“At least when I was on StuCo, we didn’t just meet once a week,” Johnston said. “You also have to include all of the 10-15 hours of other meetings that we have … Formally, I would just stick with the one hour and hold ad hoc meetings.”

A few of the students who attended the event felt that the candidates’ answers were formulated well and that they could learn a little more about the candidates’ agendas through some of the more anecdotal and candid answers that were given in response to their questions.

“I thought that a lot of important issues were brought up in this debate for the IC/BCC community,” Coleman. “While each candidate had their own unique perspectives, they all addressed the questions pretty well and had pretty clear ideas about ways in which they would help out the cultural groups and would be able to deal with issues of class,” he said.

“I appreciated [the] question that asked the candidates to address a time in their lives, in both an organized setting and in a personal setting, when they’ve experienced difference and diversity,” Brianne Gallagher ’08, another student who attended the debate, said. “I thought the candidates’ responses gave me an idea of the varying degrees to which the candidates exert mental and emotional energy thinking about issues of difference, marginalization, and oppression,” she said.

Although online voting has already passed, the option for paper voting is still taking place today in Sharples.

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