Last Thursday, Michael Belinsky '08 claimed that Tim Andreadis '07's victory was a result of voter bias against The Dartmouth's and other establishments' public support of specific candidates ("An Analysis of the SA Election," April 27).
I disagree with this statement entirely. I would be surprised if more than 100 people at this school actually care who the Dartmouth Free Press or The Dartmouth endorsed in the Student Assembly election -- everyone knows people only read the DFP for the (sometimes amusing) Commonshare segment and The Dartmouth for its comic strips. Andreadis won for real reasons. His victory was a reflection of his knowledge of and goals for Dartmouth, and nothing else.
The real reason why Andreadis won is quite simple and obvious. He was the only candidate with the ideas and attributes that Dartmouth students look for in a leader. The student body president should be the voice of the students and a channel for administrative change at Dartmouth. In order to do this effectively, the president must be aware of what is going on in the school. While the other candidates merely addressed the most prominently discussed issues, they neglected to recognize the wide scope of Dartmouth's needs. Andreadis' awareness was what made him stand out from the rest of the candidates.
First, Andreadis wants to make real changes to Student Assembly that in turn will change its interactions with the Dartmouth community and with administration. While he focuses on the real issues, other candidates' concerns included the lack of BlitzMail terminals.
Look around this school. Before we get more BlitzMail terminals and new GreenPrint systems, how about we fix the ones already up? If my memory serves me right, the same two BlitzMail terminals in Novack have been down since the last few weeks of Winter term. You would think that members of Student Assembly would pass by these terminals and attempt to do something to fix them. And the Big Green Bikes program? Any observant student will tell you that at any time last spring, there were always about five to seven bikes hidden around East Wheelock, around four hidden in the bushes by the River Cluster dorms, and some tucked away on the north side of campus by the Medical School and Gilman. However, contrary to popular belief, the bikes are not at the bottom of the river or stolen. Take a walk around the campus and you will find them. At the beginning of this term, I recall more than 20 banged-up Big Green Bikes in a pile beside the Medical School admissions building. Today, take a walk by Dick's House and you will see close to 10 out there, waiting to be ridden. The same people were consistently monopolizing the bikes, and the quality and design of the system was so low it was deemed useless. However, the system itself was not at fault. Instead, it was the way Student Assembly instituted the program by not implementing an adequate infrastructure to monitor usage and repair. Overhauling Student Assembly would stop these ineffective bills from being passed in the first place.
Second, the campaign tactics utilized by the candidates were absurd. Their strategies ranged from making cheesy puns to creating websites that nobody ever cared to visit. One presidential candidate even walked around Collis and Thayer handing out Peeps (yes, the marshmallow candy) for no apparent reason. These candidates did not give me any reason why I should actually vote for them. Andreadis' campaign was the only one I saw that actually gave real reasons why people should vote for him.
The day after the presidential debate at Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, one of my friends sent out a BlitzMail message to the entire minority community concerning one of the questions at the debate: "One question that I was allowed to ask the candidates was more or less: 'You keep mentioning the seven sororities on campus and how important they are, but you all fail to realize that there are actually nine. [They were stumped.] That being said, what is your opinion on minority Greeks on this campus?' They all skirted around and brought up unrelated issues. They weren't even sure who the members of the minority Greek community were." I expect the student body president to be knowledgeable about crucial segments of the Dartmouth community.
This comes as a disappointment when a certain candidate's ad depicts him in front of an American flag with a slogan proclaiming his support of the Greeks. How can you be for them if you do not even know all the ones on campus? I expect the student body president to be as aware of the minority Greeks as they are of the more prominent houses on campus. Just because they do not have a house on frat row does not mean they don't exist. A candidate who actually knows what is going on with the school would know that another African-American fraternity is looking to appear on campus and a group of Asian students are looking to bring a historically Asian fraternity to Dartmouth. The minority Greek system is here, and it's growing. While many of the other candidates may have later come out in support of the minority Greek system, it was only in response to the unanswered questions from the debate on Thursday. The opinion that Andreadis made known to the minority community was the only one that existed prior to the debate. Andreadis was the only candidate who knew or cared about these issues. His awareness created a wave of support that started in the minority community and eventually made its way to the entire campus.
Andreadis is dedicated to building the student body around issues that really affect everyone, and is not afraid to cater to every group of people individually. He actually cares about substantial issues and focused his campaign around issues of faculty retention, minorities, the fight against sexual assault, the Greek system and things for which we actually pay over 40,000 dollars per year to come to this school. Andreadis did not win because of the "anti-D" vote or poll results taking away from other candidates. He won because of unabashed candidate awareness and "fundamentals." At an Ivy League institution, I do not see a better way to begin a presidency.
