On the evening of April 2, the Student Government Association hosted their presidential and vice-presidential debates to introduce their potential leaders for the upcoming academic term. The debate took place in Grubbs Hall, where two parties- Banana Republic Party and the Golden Party- answered both prewritten and audience-written questions about who they were and what they stood for as parties. The debate was moderated by Corey Humble, the current student body president and a senior biology major.
The Golden Party was the first to share their opening statement at the debate. Lacy Dawn Merriman is a junior criminal justice and biology major with an emphasis in fisheries and aquatics, as well as the presidential candidate for the party. Merriman opened by saying that she and her running mate, sophomore exercise science major Josh Lawrie, want both the staff and students to have a “golden year” next year, which meant more collaboration amongst the members of campus.
“We want to strengthen our relationships with admin and faculty. Not that there’s any bad relationships, but we just really want to strengthen those,” Merriman told the audience during her opening statement. Lawrie, her running mate, also wants to help bring the student body together, seeing his position of vice president as a chance to not only to help the students, but for the students to also help campus.
“We’re really looking for that outreach and leadership,” Lawrie stated. “I think I can find a lot of people who really want to do better, go get things done, and help build us (Pittsburg State) up.”
The Golden Party also wanted to improve safety and sustainability on campus, wanting to make smaller but impactful changes, such as giving students more safety options when they are walking around at night, and allowing students to see what goes into their foods at the dining hall.
Their opposition in the electoral race was the Banana Republic Party. The Banana Republic Party was represented by two junior communications majors: Presidential candidate Darrel McLeod, who is also majoring in business economics, and vice-presidential candidate Alice Carnahan. The Banana Republic Party had three overall themes as their mission- communication, physical health, and mental health.
“We believe that those three things work cohesively together,” McLeod explained. “We believe that working towards one of them will benefit the other two.
The Banana Republic Party are also firm advocates of getting to know the student body and their wants and needs, a feeling felt especially strongly by Carnahan.
“As a communications major, I study habits on human interaction and how they communicate with each other, and I think having that knowledge helps me understand how students interact and being able to connect with them on that level.”
The debate was open to everyone on campus, not just the Student Government Association. One attendee, sophomore engineering major Connor Vanbecelaere, attended due to his connections to both parties.
“Communication is one of the biggest things I look for in a candidate” Vanbecelaere stated.
The voting ballot for next year’s Student Government Association is live now on Gorilla Engage and will be until April 11.