Based on the low turnout for this year’s WSA presidential and vice presidential forum, the event may have been more appropriately designated a press conference. Matt Ball ’08 and Emily Malkin ’08, candidates for president and vice president, respectively, addressed an audience of five attendees: three WSA members and two Argus reporters.
In terms of advertising for the event, students only received an email at 8 p.m. on Saturday, the day before it took place.
Even though Ball and Malkin are running unopposed, on the same ticket, they decided to go through with the event in order to explain one of their overarching campaign goals: the need to make the WSA more accessible, inclusive, and visible on campus.
In terms of specific projects for the upcoming year, Ball and Malkin mentioned the creation of a study space open 24 hours a day, making the General Room Selection system less complicated and hectic, streamlining the SBC process, and decreasing the fines imposed for fire and safety violations.
WSA President Zach Kolodin ’07, who served as moderator, opened the discussion by asking the candidates about their central concerns. Ball and Malkin said major changes in the administration and campus life provided significant opportunities for students to make a difference.
“With the arrival of a new president, next year there’s a good chance for the WSA to extend their role, where student representatives can be heard and have [what] we say really be taken seriously,” Ball said. “We plan on continuing the WSA’s effort towards outreach by going around to student groups to listen and take note of their concerns, and to try and get more people to come to WSA meetings.”
“The past four years have seen an enormous amount of turnover in the administrations, such as four different deans in the past four to five years,” Malkin said. “Dean Whaley is the latest dean of the college, but even his position is interim. With all of these changes, the students on the WSA could possibly have a greater awareness of general campus needs than many current administrators combined.”
Malkin also noted that, with the WSA set to take up office in the new Usdan University Center, the group hopes to have greater presence at the center of student life.
In response to a question from Kolodin about students’ greatest needs, Ball emphasized bringing separate interests together and fostering a sense of connection.
“This sounds vague, but I would say that community is one [of] the most important needs, which is tied in to concerns about general campus climate,” he said. “We don’t expect to solve all of Wesleyan’s problems, but sometimes the campus turns into many disparate groups without strong connections between them.”
One of the unavoidable questions for that afternoon concerned the event’s poor attendance and the seemingly widespread sentiment of indifference toward the WSA. Ball is set to be the third white male CSS major in a row to hold the position of WSA president. In terms of diversity and—especially this year—the dearth of contestants, Ball emphasized that the WSA could do a better job of appealing to a wider range of students.
“I don’t think there’s a lack of student leaders, but the WSA could definitely be more effective in attracting them,” he said. “I don’t think this lack of involvement is a new thing. The so-called riots a few years ago showed that people were not willing to go through the WSA.”
Malkin added, “Most people don’t know this but the WSA has a pretty strong voice in North College and in South College, where the president is. There are students sitting on every major committee on campus.”
Both Malkin and Ball joked about the possible reappearance of “Giant Joint,” the fictional candidate made up by Bex Allen ’08 in last year’s election. Giant Joint was a surprisingly successful choice, coming in third out of seven contestants in the presidential race and fourth in the vice presidential.
“On the Wesleyan Live journal community, somebody asked, ‘Who are you voting for?’” Allen said in a WesCeleb interview on May 9, 2006. “Somebody gave such an apathetic response. From that I just decided to give Wesleyan students a chance to revel in their apathy and vote for a totally ridiculous candidate. It seemed to me that a lot of people didn’t care and were going to write in joke candidates anyway.”
Allen has no intentions of resurrecting Giant Joint in this year’s election.
“I did dress up in costume on 4/20 and carried around a sign saying, ‘Hey prefrosh, inhale safely,’ but I had no plans to do a joke WSA campaign again, since everyone knows it’s just me,” Allen said. “If anything I’d pretend to run for Senior Class Prez just to piss off my friends that are actually running.”
Even when making an appearance, Giant Joint could not technically be elected as a WSA member.
“Despite how compelling Giant Joint may be as a candidate, he/she/ze is not an enrolled student, so therefore cannot properly run for election,” Malkin said.
“I feel that the WSA is kind of obscure and too serious for the rest of the student body,” Allen said on the subject of student apathy toward the WSA elections. “Sure, Matt’s a funny guy, but he’s in CSS too, right? Anyway, the people who are in the WSA are the ones who really know who should be in charge, not so much the rest of us.”
The WSA voting site will be open from May 22 through May 27, at http://condor.wesleyan.edu:4000/wsavoting.
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