Senior Wes Corning has replaced Tim Scales as Community Senate president as part of a plan orchestrated before spring elections last year. During fall 2006, Corning served from abroad in London as one of two vice-presidents on the candidacy ticket that won the executive seats. “We were both interested in being president,” Scales said. “Wes knew that he was going to be abroad for the semester and I wanted to work on Revelers and some other things for part of the year, so this is the solution we came up with.”
Scales’ ticket for the spring 2006 election had five members to fill four executive positions. Junior Katie Bailey ran as the other vice-presidential candidate and continues to serve in that position.
“The decision was made just before we announced our bid to run,” Corning said. “Tim agreed that he would step down after the semester was over and I would fill the role when I got back, so that’s what we did.”
Aaron Fetrow, dean of Campus Life and advisor to the Senate, claims that he was initially concerned about the legitimacy of such a plan.
“I think it’s reasonable to assume that Americans would be suspicious, upset if they elected someone for president, only to have that person give the position up to someone they didn’t ask for,” Fetrow said. “My only real concern was that nobody was violating the Senate bylaws. I looked at them closely and this kind of thing wasn’t addressed, so I couldn’t object.”
Fetrow also required that the plan be made public before the elections took place.
“I knew about this only two or three days before the campaigns started,” Fetrow said. “I told Tim and the other members of his ticket that they needed to make this whole thing open and clear to the students – all five of them needed to be listed on the ticket and they had to make every effort to publicize it.”
“I think we did a good job of informing the populace,” Corning said. “We spread it by word-of-mouth as much as we could. It was on the ticket, and we even let The Guilfordian know, though I don’t think (The Guilfordian) ever published anything.”
Some members of the Senate objected to the plan as outside the realm of fair politics.
“The whole thing was very inappropriate,” said senior Dave Unger, a senator who ran for president on an opposing ticket last spring. “I had no idea I might run against Tim until the day that the petitions were due, after all that I was really running against Wes the whole time. I feel that Wes knew that he was not electable on his own, but Tim’s popularity could get him in.”
Others have more a sense that the plan was an example of business as usual. Jesse Seitel, senior, ran on an outsider ticket, but withdrew from the campaign before the election.
“It just makes it clear that the whole thing is kind of absurd, a game really, when they can just prop positions like that,” Seitel said, “What’s troubling is that it doesn’t change the fact that senate is still a body with a lot of power over the students’ money and so on, whether there is accountability or not.”
Fetrow believes that most concerns like these lie with a small group that is closely involved and does not branch to the larger Guilford community.
“Its true that Senate has a lot of power on this campus, but the senators can’t be held accountable if the students don’t hold them accountable,” Fetrow said. “I think around 100 people voted in the election – apparently a plan like this one won’t bother too many people.”
Accountability is one of Corning’s main points of focus for the remainder of his term.
“My biggest project will be to increase communication with administration and with the student body to let them know what we’re doing every week as their representatives,” Corning said. “It’s important that we find a way to get rid of this apathy.