My name is Kate Steven, and I’m the chair of the 2012 Board of Elections for Undergraduate Student Senate at Ohio University. I am also a 2011 graduate of OU and a current graduate student. This letter reflects my own opinion and not the view of the Board of Elections.
The Board of Elections oversees the Student Senate election process. We review and run a check on submitted applications, determine the eligibility of applicants, and provide conflict management as a neutral entity for any dispute or question between candidates and campaigning parties.
Right now, however, we are learning how much we must also be an advocate for OU students when irrelevant information is distributed. This letter is to address an occurrence that has happened early during this election season.
I refer specifically to the non-OU related violations that The Post single-handedly dug up with the list of names of Student Senate hopefuls. Reporter Sara Jerde’s claim that the information had “surfaced” and “came to light” refers to her own personal investigation. It upsets me that though many candidates and I were interviewed in the thus-far positive spirit of campaigning, our voices weren’t “juicy” enough for The Post.
Even with this “new” information, all applicants are eligible for being on the ballot for the May 17 election. As long as students are in good standing with the university, they are eligible applicants. Those who have prior violations are reviewed before they are passed through the application process. Once students have fulfilled their debt to our university society, why should we continue to penalize them?
I would be hard pressed to find anyone on this campus who can’t name five people who once had a violation of some sort or many more students who may have participated in a similar activity and simply had the luck not to be “caught.” One of the things I love about OU is that we are student-centered and aim to help students along their development process and learn from negative experiences.
Who is The Post to counter-productively judge which candidates are qualified or not? This is the fifth Student Senate election I’ve had the opportunity to see, but I’ve never seen the media get so bored that we end up with articles like this, in a malicious spirit. Inference from The Post was the catalyst for the candidate dropping out of the race.
This unwarranted investigation of individual students has turned an annual, exciting event into Bobcats defaming Bobcats and pushing bright, young people into emotional and social distress. “Freedom of the press” aside, I am ashamed of the sloppy, deceiving journalism that has been promoted by The Post by publicizing negative information that is not related to a candidate’s eligibility.
We must remember that though friendly competition between opposing candidates is welcome, this is student government in a small community, not a nationwide election, and malicious actions shouldn’t go unseen, especially when an outside party (again, The Post) has changed the election process and dynamic by devaluing their fellow students. It is mind-blowing to me that all of the candidates, even opposing ones, have more respect for one another than The Post has for the student body it writes about.
Still, I’m excited for this upcoming election season and the innovative, unique campaigning that I’ve seen thus far and the professionalism of ALL candidates. So far, I have known all of the applicants to act in a manner that they would all be fine candidates to be a part of next year’s Student Senate.
In the future, I hope that more time, thought and humanity will go into the journalistic process and we can begin to read a higher caliber of reporting, rather than what seems to be a tabloid of campus “celebrities.”
In the spirit of Bobcat pride, I hope that in the future all student reporters and all Ohio University community members uphold respect for one other.
Kate Steven is a first-year graduate student in the College Student Personnel program.
