Three Fresh Faces Vie for SGA Presidency McElroy, Feinberg, and Rodriguez Launch Unique Campaigns

Author: Edward Pickering

Fresh off a semester in Paris, where she acquired a taste for French fare and outdoor cafes, Megan McElroy '04 has set her sights on the office of president of the Student Government Association (SGA).
Yet McElroy prefers the title 'Student Body President' to "SGA President."
Reclining in her chair with a salad in her hands, the French/political science double major expressed a deep desire to strengthen the relationship between the student body and SGA.
A senator during her first two years at Middlebury College and currently chief of staff to the SGA president, McElroy "would like to see members of the student body attend SGA meetings." The presidential hopeful envisions an SGA that is "much more a facilitator of student needs, not merely a governing body."
Two catchwords-approachability and communication-lie at the heart of her campaign.
"I can relate to a wide range of people," said McElroy, who counts her interpersonal skills among her greatest assets as a candidate. She cites her past experience in student government as further proof of her readiness for the job: "I really care about the SGA and I think it is really valuable to have prior experience with the SGA in order to improve it."
McElroy divides her platform into three areas: Residential Life, College Traditions and Academic Issues.
McElroy would like the College to guarantee on-campus housing to seniors as well as ensure that students are able to remain in their commons for four straight years.
Through citation reform she intends to create a safer drinking environment. In addition, she intends to work with school administration and the Vermont state representative to determine whether an area can be created on campus where students 18 and above can drink legally.
As much as McElroy loves Middlebury College, at times she perceives a lack of campus unity - a problem she would remedy by creating new traditions and strengthening existing ones.
Central to McElroy's vision is the inauguration of a Spring Fling, a festival similar to Winter Carnival. "The goal of Spring Fling," said McElroy, "is to bring together various facets of the Middlebury community to foster a sense of unity and tradition at the College."
McElroy declared she would investigate the creation of an on-campus senior/alumni bar if there were strong student support for such a measure.
By continuing the SGA's efforts to organize forums and lunch discussions, McElroy hopes to promote respect and communication among campus groups and students with differing backgrounds and interests. "I would like to see more respect-respect as opposed to mere tolerance," said McElroy. She proposes the creation of a fall leadership conference that all student leaders would attend.
McElroy plans to establish a weekly SGA newsletter to inform the student body of matters relating to student governance. Such a move plays into her overall goal of "making a more open SGA."
Additionally, McElroy will work to strengthen student-alumni ties, both socially and professionally. Having served on the Student-Alumni Committee for three straight years, McElroy plans to organize events that will bring students and alumni together. She will enlist the help of the Career Services Office in order to improve communications between alumni and students regarding job opportunities.
Academically, McElroy vows to ensure the student voice is represented regarding such current issues as study abroad grades, the abolishment of AP credit and the restriction of multiple majors. She advocates portable financial aid for students who choose to study abroad at non-Middlebury programs.
"I want everybody to know me," said McElroy, contemplating the upcoming election, "and if I were elected, I'd want everybody to know what is going on in the SGA."
A native of Sudbury Mass., and a follower of Notre Dame football , McElroy kicked off her campaign by going door to door in the first-year dorms.
McElroy presents a smiling face to all comers as she campaigns according to the theme that defines her platform: improving communication and relationships between the SGA and student body, the alumni and students, the College and wider community and the individual students themselves.
"I really appreciate the little things we enjoy at Middlebury," said McElroy, "Things like receiving a friendly 'hello' from a person you don't know all that well - those moments when you receive and extend affirmations of friendship."
A rugby injury may have prevented Andrew Feinberg '04 from traveling to nationals, but it has not hindered his campaign for President of the College's Student Government Association (SGA).
Sidelined from intercollegiate competition by a torn LCL, the junior class SGA senator and student member of the Community Council finds himself in the midst of a three-way race.
"Although this was my first year in the SGA, I dove right into it and loved it," said Feinberg, his injured leg carefully propped on a chair in Bicentennial's Great Hall. "I really think that, in many ways, I am the most qualified candidate."
"I passed several bills in the fall," Feinberg continued, reflecting on his record of service, "and, through my involvement with Community Council, interacted on a high level with faculty and administration."
Feinberg believes that his experience interacting with College executives has uniquely prepared him for the SGA presidency, an office he conceptualizes as, "a bridge between the student body and faculty and administration."
When asked if his presidency would have a guiding principle, or theme, Feinberg responded in the affirmative: "To put the power back into the hands of the students." Pausing to let his words sink in, Feinberg launched into an exposition of his campaign platform.
Feinberg identifies a College-wide movement towards decentralization. This movement, he explains, entails the creation of unnecessary, unwanted bureaucracy and limits student freedom. In particular, Feinberg vows to resist faculty-led efforts to "to further regulate the education [students] receive."
He opposed and continues to oppose the move to incorporate study abroad grades in students' Middlebury College transcripts, arguing that in doing so faculty and administrators will discourage many students from taking difficult classes and frustrate others who value the experience of living abroad as much as the schoolwork abroad.
In addition, Feinberg opposes the discontinuation of granting credit for AP scores and the possible restriction of student freedom to select multiple majors/minors. "Middlebury prides itself on giving students choice," said Feinberg, emphasizing in the same breath that he would fight to defend that choice.
In addition to academic reform, Feinberg's platform calls for "significant changes in the regulation of student life on campus." Feinberg desires a revision in the current citation policy system, a goal toward which he worked this past year, authoring a bill that would have allowed students to work off one citation in exchange for attending alcohol education earlier. Though the bill ultimately stalled in Community Council after having passed the SGA, Feinberg pledges to pursue its eventual ratification.
Feinberg plans to reform TIPS, the three-hour training course all students who wish to host parties must attend. Describing it as "ineffective" and "too stringent and burdensome," Feinberg would abolish the "stipulation that a server be held liable and accountable for all actions at his/her party" and for what a student does after he/she leaves the party."
Feinberg expressed an eagerness to work with President John McCardell in the latter's attempt to lobby Montpelier to lower the drinking age in Middlebury to 18.
Addressing the issue of senior housing, Feinberg said, "I'm realistic: the SGA president cannot get new senior housing built, but I will work to improve existing senior housing."
The junior class senator rounded
out his social agenda by pledging his full support for the social house system. "Social houses are an integral part of our community. They allow students to form close bonds," said Feinberg, not a social house member himself. "Shutting down a social house is not an acceptable course of action."
As the final element of his platform Feinberg supports current efforts to make Middlebury College a "sustainable campus." It is important, stated Feinberg, that Community Council eventually pass the carbon-neutral initiative.
A native of Bethesda, Md., and diehard fan of D.C. sports teams, Feinberg pondered his past experience and his vision for the future, concluding, "My greatest ability is to focus on a task and accomplish it."
"I'm an aggressive, not a passive, leader," said Feinberg, a history major. "If I see something that needs to be done. I will galvanize the necessary support to get it accomplished, but I will always listen to the minority."
Known to his friends as 'Finny,' Feinberg pursues his goals with great determination. "My most rewarding experience at Middlebury," said Feinberg, "was helping the rugby team return to this year's final four. We were 45 people working together for a common goal."
Sam Rodriguez '03 took the stage at last Friday's karaoke competition, held in Proctor Dining Hall, and walked away with $100 in his back pocket.
Personable and opinionated, the Memphis, Tenn., native will take a populist approach to his campaign for President of the Student Government Association (SGA).
A newcomer to college politics, Rodriguez hopes to move from the wings and into the limelight. Said Rodriguez, "Although formal experience in SGA does help build character, I don't think that it is the only means of developing the strength of character necessary to become SGA president."
"An SGA president," continued Rodriguez, "must have good ideas and a sincere desire to improve the school."
Rodriguez, a history major, dates his interest in student politics to a series of debates he attended, beginning last spring. "My interest in Middlebury student politics is recent-it started with the lock-down. After that I began attending forums on campus wide issues, like smoking policy and AP credits."
"I also strongly opposed the anti-war resolution," added Rodriguez.
As president, Rodriguez vows to "apply common sense to common problems." "I am essentially only interested in ideas that are both innovative and do-able."
Rodriguez bases his candidacy on a platform of "innovate, but do-able ideas" and a commitment to personal contact with individual students.
Rodriguez would like to establish a health food cafeteria on campus, perhaps in Freeman Dining Hall. The food served in such a cafeteria would meet stringent nutritional requirements, thereby allowing students to dine without temptation or guilt. The nutritional content of the food would be made readily available.
In addition to a health food cafeteria, Rodriguez plans to create a "student grievance network," through which students could confidentially voice grievances they have with faculty or staff members. Rodriguez adds that students could also communicate compliments through this network. A "point man" would serve as the intermediary, relaying information from one party to another.
Rodriguez feels strongly that STD/HIV tests should be entirely free and anonymous. "Right now, students have to pay for these tests [and] have to suffer the embarrassment of identifying themselves," Rodriguez explained. "This must stop."
The final portion of Rodriguez's platform concerns the commons system. "The biggest problem with the Commons System," Rodriguez asserted, "is that many students perceive it as a meaningless decentralization of our college community."
While acknowledging the centrality of the commons system to Middlebury's future, Rodriguez offers a practical measure to strengthen it. He suggests that an SGA approved and funded student organization should be given the option, if it so wishes, to transfer its account to the willing commons of its choice. Such a measure, Rodriguez reasoned, would make "for greater budgetary flexibility, and develop a new sense of identity and meaning within commons."
Rodriguez, who describes himself as a "reform candidate," promised that if elected he would eat outside a dining hall at least once a week and field comments and queries from the student body. For every idea presented to him at these dinner sessions Rodriguez vowed to "provide an honest, rational assessment of the merits of the idea and unconditionally recommend that the proposing student bring forth a bill, regarding that idea, to the Senate floor [through a willing senate sponsor]."
The emphasis Rodriguez places on interpersonal contact extends to his conception of the SGA's larger role: "I don't look at the SGA as simply a government. I look at it as the liaison between the administration and the student body."
Through his membership in the Philomathesian Society, a revived 19th century literary club of which he is vice-president, Rodriguez has honed his rhetorical skill.
Always eager to talk, Rodriguez, who also hosts a political talk show aired on WRMC, invites all interested students to converse with him in the weeks leading up to the election.
Assessing his candidacy and, in particular, his position as an outsider, Rodriguez said, "We need to give less weight to formal experience and more weight to fresh ideas."
"I think every thoughtful person, at some point in his life, looks around and concludes, 'we can do better.'" Rodriguez continued. "This past year I, myself, have become especially interested in looking at the Middlebury world. I think that I have good ideas and that I have the resolve to push them through.