For the first time since she stepped into office almost two years ago, Graduate Student Senate President Tracy Kelly will have competition for the presidency.
Kelly, who will lead the Proud Party, will now be running in a contested race against current undergraduate student senator John Calhoun, who will head the hOUr Party.
“I am very happy about it,” Kelly said. “One of our goals of Graduate Student Senate is to increase awareness about the organization and to get people excited about participating in it … there isn’t anything that proves that people are excited about it more than a fully contested race.”
Calhoun, the current University Life commissioner for Student Senate, said the main reasons he ran were because the race has been uncontested for the past two years and his experience with undergraduate senate will help him tremendously.
“With all of the contacts that I have made, I have had a lot of interactions with administrators,” he said. “It is people like that I know I can communicate with and have conversation with insofar as organizing events and planning functions and getting (public relations).”
Kelly said the addition of a new candidate vying for the president’s position would not affect her campaign strategy in any way.
“We were actually going to put our full effort in one way or the other,” she said. “The way I see it is that I want to use this campaign time as an opportunity to make as many graduate students as possible aware about it and to get them excited.”
Both candidates said they are excited about the contested race and think it will benefit the graduate student population.
It is likely the contested race will cause Kelly to reach out more to various graduate students, which is the ultimate goal of an election, Calhoun said.
“What I am saying is that with at least two people of different parties talking to graduate students and going out and getting them interested in a very competitive race is always good,” he said.
Platforms for both of the parties will be officially announced today, but Kelly said she wants to take this year to let graduate students know what Graduate Student Senate has done and will do for them.
“We are really going to make an effort to reach out to as many graduate students as possible and sit down with them,” she said. “It is really important that they know us as
individuals.”
hOUr Party
President: John Calhoun
Vice President for Committees & Legislative Affairs: Thomas Raabe
Vice President for Administration and Finance: Erin Dame
Vice President for Communications: Michael Dickard
College of Education Senator: Steven Foy
Proud Party
President: Tracy Kelly
Vice President for Committees and Legislative Affairs: Isaac Abram
Vice President for Administration and Finance: Jeff Barbee
Vice President for Communications: Molly Yanity
College of Arts and Sciences Senator: Brendan Moore
College of Communication Senator: Ashley Furrow
College of Education Senator: Dane Johnston
College of Fine Arts Senator: Rebecca Sherwood
Center for International Studies Senator: Christine Pirot
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