With pollen and a newly invigorated call for change in the air, annual spring elections for Student Assembly allow the student body to reflect on the outgoing administration and select a new slate of leaders.
The sheer number of candidates and competitiveness of the elections reveal how student interests and concerns evolve over three terms, generating dialogue in every corner of campus, said Eric Ramsey, supervisor of the Elections Planning and Advisory Committee.
"I remember having plenty of conversations on my freshman floor about who we planned on voting for," Samantha Schiff '15 said. "None of us had ever met the candidates before campaign week, but all of a sudden, we were entitled to make decisions about the future of our student government. It was exciting."
As Schiff noted, it is nearly impossible for students to ignore campaign week at Dartmouth, regardless of age or extracurricular involvement. Pastel chalking of candidates' names and slogans ensure that the concrete sidewalks compete with floral blouses for brightness. Glossy posters line the walls of classroom buildings and campaign supporters dole out baked goods and buttons. And, aside from a few exceptional cases, election week is the only time one can find upperclassmen eagerly roaming freshman residential halls in broad daylight, delivering their messages in the hopes of recruiting underclassmen voters.
Student Assembly president Suril Kantaria '13 reflected on the frenzied atmosphere of the campaign last spring.
"There is just no point in time where you can take a deep breath and relax," he said. "You always feel like there is something you could be doing at any free moment."
Indicative of the extensive campaigning efforts by each of the candidates, the 2012 election, like many that preceded it, was the epitome of a close call. Erin Klein '13 trailed behind Kantaria by only 11 votes while third runner-up, Joseph Tanenbaum '13, fell short of Klein's tally by a meager count of four.
Yet as evidenced by each of the contenders' candidacy statements in The Dartmouth, a common thread pervaded their platforms. Beneath buzzwords like "accountability," "efficiency" and "diversity," the promises focused on breathing new life into the structure and performance of the Assembly, empowering students with a greater voice in campus affairs and creating a more productive platform to address a wide range of student issues.
This theme is far from original. Students have identified the need to make the Assembly more relevant in campus policy for years. Eric Tanner '11, who served as president from 2010 to 2011, is known for scrapping entire sections of the constitution in favor of a committee-based structure whose members would be equipped with the tools and know-how to draft and present their own initiatives to administrators for approval.
Tanner indicated that although candidates may run on a common ideal of revamping the Assembly, they differentiate from one another by their solutions to this dilemma. He noted that candidates vastly depart from their predecessors as a result of the ever-changing campus environment and lack of institutional memory that is often blamed for disrupting the development of ongoing initiatives as new issues and administrators replace the old.
"Next year, there will be one class remaining of the people I went to school with," Tanner said. "The [College] president I met with once a month is gone. The [Dean of the College] I met with once a week is gone. Sometimes you get the sense that you leave Dartmouth, and Dartmouth leaves all the things you did for it."
Indeed, the issues that were topical during past administrations will be vastly different from those that will matter to the incoming Class of 2014 representatives.
Former student body vice president Amrita Sankar '12 declined to comment on elections simply because, despite having graduated from Dartmouth less than a year ago, she no longer felt in touch with current campus issues.
"From what I understand, so much change is currently happening at Dartmouth, that I wouldn't even be able to fairly assess what is or isn't possible," she wrote in an email.
In light of the recent bias incidents, however, Kantaria predicts that this spring's candidates will advocate building a stronger sense of community. He believes the candidates will take advantage of President-elect Philip Hanlon's inauguration to "start over and come up with innovative ways for giving students a strong voice with the new administration," he said.
Although historically popular matters may fade with each new student government, open dialogue and cooperation between student leaders and College officials will always be instrumental to the success of a new administration.
Tanner echoed the importance of establishing trusting relationships with all administrators.
"In the end, if you're talking about affecting big campus policies, you can't do it on your own." Tanner said. "You need money, you need support and you're not going to get any of that unless you make a conscientious effort to build a rapport with the administration."
Aside from establishing open communication lines with the administration, both Kantaria and Tanner said the victor's ability to fulfill campaign promises relies on aligning such promises with reality from the very beginning, as well as recruiting and retaining a coalition of students who regularly attend meetings and are loyal to its cause.
Thus, there is no "ideal" candidate that ultimately wins the election each year. Based on the past 10 years of high-ranking SA representatives, it is nearly impossible to find a persistent link between their various campus affiliations and their rankings at the polls. However, the victor typically boasts a greater familiarity with the Assembly than his or her opponents due to past involvement with the organization.
"Just as in national elections, some people want change and identify themselves with different candidates each year," Tanner said.
He and Kantaria argued that the strongest correlation with success is a candidate's determination to reach out to as many students as possible during the campaign period. Consequently, prospective candidates should find comfort in knowing that elections are a far cry from glorified popularity contests.
"With 4,000 undergraduates, winning depends on explaining who you are and why you are running to as many people as you can," Kantaria said. "The person who ends up winning has put close to the most, if not the most, work into the campaign."
