RPInsider = Politics: Neidhardt and Dicker Endorsed
The Best GM Week Political Team at RPI
It’s that time of year again! Election fever has descended upon RPI this year even earlier than usual. The DCC’s windows are covered in posters in the shape of candidates’ names, the CII is once again a seven story billboard for a political party, and all over campus one can find banners adorned with campaign slogans. Yes, GM Week is upon us, and the battle to represent you, the students, has commenced. But who to vote for? Here at RPInsider we’ve assembled the best RPI political team on the internet (even better than last year’s) to help you decide just that.
Just as we did last year, we asked each of the GM/PU candidates by email to submit a short statement about themselves and why we should endorse them. For the GM candidates, we received responses from Ben Hunt, Andrew Neidhardt, and Michael Zwack. For PU, responses came from Mike Spitz and Stefan Dicker.
Based on the statements submitted, general campaign activity, and the debates, we have finally reached a decision:
RPInsider endorses Andrew Neidhardt for Grand Marshal and Stefan Dicker for the President of the Union.
Find out why below.
Andrew Neidhardt stands apart from the rest due to his clear goal to create a stronger link between student government and the student body, a goal that he has already begun to act on, with great results that demonstrate his passion and ability. It is easy to see how he could continue to expand on these efforts as GM. Building on a lot of experience, we believe that he will fill the role quite comfortably, his confidence clearly visible in his statement, his campaigning, and his remarks during the debate.
Have you ever felt that you don’t know exactly what the GM, the PU, or the student government do for us, the students? Neidhardt has the desire, and we believe the skills, necessary to change that. It is this goal that makes up the major basis for his campaign.
His proposed methods for accomplishing this can be summed up in four main points:
- Hold monthly meetings with club and Greek leadership.
- Hold periodic town hall style meetings with the general student body to keep students informed and receive feedback.
- Initiate a public conversation between the student body, clubs, organizations, Greek bodies, and student government.
- Publicize student government inititiatives and accomplishments.
Some students, including the editors of The Poly, have expressed concern about how Neidhardt will handle himself in situations involving the administration. We disagree. Given his past experiences in working with with the administration, we feel that he fully understands how to act appropriately, and will continue to demonstrate professionalism as a representative of the student body.
We support Neidhardt for GM.
Stefan Dicker will feel right at home as PU. A rising junior, Dicker is a member of the E-Board and chaired the Athletics and Recreation committee. Outside of student government he is president of the Ultimate Frisbee club after serving as treasurer last year. Needless to say, he’s packed in a lot of experience in the last two years, but we needed to see more than just experience to dish out a nomination. Dicker backed up his experience with a few clear goals:
- Better utilize facilities made more accessible by the opening of ECAV, such as the Mueller Center, Armory, ‘87 Gym, and ‘86 Field to better serve student organizations and the student body as a whole
- Expand E-Board/Student communication and transparency with an online forum
We were pleased to see that Dicker has a plan and goals he would like to meet, aside from simply doing the job of PU. We especially liked his support for more communication with students, which seems to compliment one of the major concerns of Neidhardt, the recipient of our GM endorsement. Here at RPInsider, we’re all for increased communication and transparency, and Dicker’s commitment to expanding this was one of the main reasons we chose to endorse him for PU.
So there you have it: RPInsider’s Official picks for GM & PU. The RPInsider Political Team would like to thank the candidates for their submissions, and wish them all good luck this week. We encourage you to check out this facebook group, where the candidates are directly answering students’ questions, to further help you with your decision.
Also, don’t forget to vote in the upcoming elections this week, primaries are on Monday, and final elections are on Thursday. Remember, to receive a GM Week mug, you have to vote in both elections this year! Just some extra motivation to get everyone involved in the primaries, right?
And just for the record, the RPInsider Elections Team has no affiliation with any of the candidates up for election. We merely analyzed the candidates’ written submissions and their performances at today’s debates to come to our conclusion. We would encourage you to voice your opinions on the candidates here, on an ACB thread, and/or on the facebook group listed above. As always with our blog, take from it what you’d like. We’re not required reading, or by any means the sole thing you should base your vote on. We just thought we’d try and do our bit to help you decide.
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Are you people serious? Screw the vote, not to mention the enormous waste of money that is GM Week. My biggest regret is that any of my money is going to support this moronic school spirit circle jerk week.
I would like ‘RPInsider Elections Team’ to publicly state any involvement that Neidhardt or Dicker may have with RPInsider. I feel that if a candidate is endorsed by a group that it should be clear that there is no conflict of interest with that individual.
Given that the writers of this endorsement refuse to identify themselves, I think there is some serious and valid concern that there may be a political conflict between the writers and the candidates. I know that RPI TV refuses to endorse candidates for that reason, because a substantial amount of its members are active in a political party.
For the record, the RPInsider Elections Team has no affiliation with any of the candidates up for election. We merely analyzed the candidates’ written submissions and their performances at today’s debates to come to our conclusion. We would encourage you to voice your opinions on the candidates here, on an ACB thread, and/or on the facebook group listed above. As always with our blog, take from it what you’d like. We’re not required reading, or by any means the sole thing you should base your vote on. We just thought we’d try and do our bit to help you decide.
I would like to concur with the two commenters directly above me. I enjoy RPInsider as a source of information, and I would hate to see its apparent journalistic integrity threatened by politics.
Sniped!
I think it would be quite informative for RPInsider to publish those responses from candidates. It would also be nice for you to provide the information that lead you to the conclusion that is different from nearly every other source that Andrew would maintain a good relationship with administration. What past actions or information lead you to this belief?
Yes, while this is not required reading, this site has become a popular source of information related to campus happenings, and I believe you should not be making endorsements like this. I believe that this endorsement should be rescinded. I agree with Chris W. This is a good site, and it would be a shame if information contrary to what has been posted by the Executive Editor above were to become known.
In response to your concerns regarding Andrew Neidhardt’s ability to maintain a good relationship with the administration, we would like to first refer you to the closing remarks of the statement he submitted to RPInsider.
“Most importantly, I know how to be professional. I know how to balance the professionalism of meeting with administrators and being a voice for what the students are saying.”
That said, this is his word, and it is not the only thing that contributed to our belief in his ability to maintain this relationship. Although we have no evidence of how he would perform as Grand Marshal, only one candidate has that background. We believe that it is unfair to choose based solely on this and have a number of reasons for choosing Neidhardt for this endorsement. In defense of his abilities and his professionalism, we would like to refer you to a selected number of positions that he has held. We believe that this list demonstrates both his experience, and his abilities:
Served as Chair of the Student Life Committee 2008-2009
Serving as the Vice Chairman of the Student Senate 2009-Present
Coordinated Pizza with the Cabinet
Interacted with the Vice President for Student Life on a number of issues such as the CLASS Initiative
Is currently serving as a Resident Director
Is currently working for the New York State Senate
It is clear to us that to succeed in any of these positions requires a high degree of professionalism, and in all cases has put him in a position of interacting with administration and the student body, often acting as a liaison between the two. These are not the only factors that have contributed to our endorsement, but it is with these things in mind that we have reached a different conclusion than a number of other sources.
I agree with the other commenters. While anonymity isn’t conducive to trustworthy journalism to begin with, it becomes a much larger issue when providing endorsements of political candidates. You should disclose your identity or stay mum when it comes to elections.
I find the claim that RPInsider has no affiliation with any of the candidates up for election incredibly difficult to believe. The people who write this blog are clearly very knowledgeable about campus goings-on, and to achieve that without affiliating with folks in student government is next to impossible.
Every candidate has their strengths and weaknesses. The poly wrote an interesting piece which included each candidate – I would like to see a similar analysis from RPInsider.
We would like to commend the Poly for their well thought out and comprehensive article. However, they failed to render a decision as to who they thought was best. They already told you, the students, what each platform was and what their strengths and weaknesses were, so we took that information, along with the rest of the information we collected, and formed a decision based on this compilation of information. As far as giving a full analysis of each candidate, the Poly did that for us.
We appreciate your concern “RPI Student.” Your passion for a transparent process is admirable, and it is ironic that we must remain anonymous. Please take our recommendation with a grain of salt. Again, it is just that: A recommendation. Perhaps one of the reasons the blog is popular is because we’re not afraid to comment on campus happenings. We do however, reserve the right to endorse whoever we want. We are taking the elections so seriously, we created a separate body (“The RPInsider Elections Team”) to evaluate the submissions and candidates prior to the endorsement. Every effort was made to make the process fair to all involved. In the name of transparency, we’d be happy to publish the submissions given to us by the candidates. Please see the links below.
Mike Spitz
Stefan Dicker
Michael Zwack
Ben Hunt
Andrew Neidhardt
“Your passion for a transparent process is admirable, and it is ironic that we must remain anonymous.”
You MUST remain anonymous? Why’s that? If you can’t admit who you are, can you at least give the rationale behind it?
Out of idle curiosity did some of the candidates send in submissions in non-PDF format?
I would like to see this as well actually.
Dicker might have good plans, but I question his ability to carry them out. He did such a terrible job as our e-board rep (confusing our club with another club, not meeting with us during budgeting, and as a result not being able advocate for/represent us during the budgeting).
I’m sure the kid has good intentions, but he didn’t seem committed to his job as our e-board rep, and therefore I don’t think he’ll have the commitment necessary to be a effective PU.
Speaking as a former member of the Poly staff ….
I would like to point out that The Poly too has conflicts of interests with candidates. There are some members of the Editorial Board that are heavily aligned with certain people, but that is why we have the hour-long interview with each candidate. It gives us a chance to see any personality-related quirks with the candidates and to hear them VOICE opinions as opposed to what they put on paper.
The reason there was no endorsement is that our Constitution dictates that no more than two people can disagree with the person we pick… having a large editorial board of 15 very different people, this makes that task a little daunting.
Combine the Poly endorsement and this endorsement and what you saw at debates (which honestly wasn’t a very good indicator since they all performed rather abysmally) … I think combining everything will give you a rounded view of each candidate and enough to base your decision off of.
That being said, I do believe RPInsider has some affiliation with at least some of the candidates. But no matter what you read you’ll get a bias, whether it’s here, in The Poly, from the IFC/Panhel, or anywhere else for that matter.
I’m still not sure who I’m going to vote for in the final election … it really depends on how the two candidates who win the primary manage to improve or compensate for some of their weaknesses that have been listed in The Poly endorsement.
You’re all smart though since you’re at RPI; so make your own decision based on what you personally see instead of just going off of what other people recommend.
I agree with this. I’m really waiting for some more distinction between the candidates. I haven’t finished reading the poly special or watching the debates though.
I would like to hear from Neidhardt on what he thinks of this anonymous endorsement, and give him the opportunity to state that he is not affiliated with RPInsider.
@RPI Student
If it’s anonymous, how would he know
I am offended – I liked RPInsider because they did their own work. I am unsatisfied with the effort this site as put into their decision.
Additionally, the Poly has described their endorsement process – what did the RPInsider Election Team do? Would it have been logistically possible for RPInsider to not endorse a candidate?
We would like to clarify that we only meant that to say that we do not feel the need to reiterate what the Poly said. It was a very thorough and comprehensive analysis. Ours would sound very repetitive when compared to theirs. In a way we’re endorsing the Poly’s article.
As far as describing the endorsement process we used, we believe it is stated in the post above, in the second paragraph and the bolded sentence prior to the endorsement. Additionally, the team deliberated and came to a consensus following the Poly article and the debates. As this is a student-run blog, we have no official rules governing our endorsement process as the Poly does, but we took great care to make the most informed decision we could, given the anonymous nature of RPInsider. As Cara R pointed out, we are merely giving our analysis on the elections, just as the Poly did, and you should take from it what you will, and make your own decision. Our goal is to make you, the students, as informed as we can.
I am a frequent reader of RPInsider as I think they do a good job discussing general campus issues/news. I was happy to submit an endorsement platform to RPInsider this year.
I don’t want to comment too much on this thread as I will let students make decisions for themselves, but I would urge you to watch the debates, read the GM Week poly edition release 4/8, but most especially, check out the Facebook discussion group created to have running discussion between real students and the candidates. There have been many discussions so far.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=364175449396&ref=ts
In other news, early this am, right before today’s primary election, GM candidate Michael Zwack approached the RNE (Rules & Elections Committee) about a statement I made in the GM Week Poly issue. The statement reads: “Zwack often takes credit for projects he did not devise or lead.” The section asked specifically for the weaknesses of the current GM. I went on to cite and explain this statement with examples and evidence. Simply because of this statement in the Poly, RNE removed my campaign privileges for the ENTIRE week!!! No postering no campaigning! I’m basically not a candidate! Read the egregious punishment below:
http://documents.studentsenate.rpi.edu/documents/7
I’d like to note that I have always had a productive relationship with Zwack and consider him a friend. However, I disagree with his leadership style and should be allowed to disagree with the opinions and statements of another candidate. I believe I have placed all criticism of his past term in respectful contexts; contexts of which general political discussion is predisposed.
Aside from all of my other ideas to improve student government, I would certainly like to improve the elections process. The postering wars, the exorbitant time commitment, and the ridiculous power of the RNE all need auditing.
Ben
It seems as though there are quite a few people who disagree with this endorsement. I’m a little curious about why none of these comments actually give a reason to vote for a different candidate. This comment comes the closest:
I’d prefer to see a positive argument for another candidate rather than a negative one about Neidhardt or Dicker, but at least that commenter gave a valid reason to disagree with rpinsider’s endorsement. It almost seems as though no one would have taken issue if they had chosen to endorse a different candidate.
This doesn’t make sense then. Your analysis would obviously be different, as your endorsement was different. The Poly stated they thought Neidhardt would be rash and might not handle interaction with the administration well, while you, still not providing a good reason as to why you think differently, other then unbacked statements seemingly written by Neidhardt himself. I am not trying to hide it: I believe that there is conflict of interest in giving this endorsement, and find it dishonest. You still have not stated that there is no affiliation between RPInsider and Neidhardt.
Filling roles, like the ones listed above, does not imply that he would interact rationally and level headed when dealing with the administration. His conduct in senate meetings, and speech given at uprise really does not lead me to believe that he could be an effective Grand Marshal. During senate meetings, the Grand Marshal is to remain impartial during debate. The manner in which he acted during activity fee approval and sign policy discussion and smoking policy reform makes it very obvious that Andrew would push his opinion, while claiming to be offering the voice of students, on the entire senate.
He also dealt with the failure to remove the foot bridge passage of the sign policy extremely poorly and rashly. He made the senate look very bad by mass emailing many organizations with unjust comments.
As Vice Chair of the Student Senate, Andrew has been in a position to do many of the things he claims he will do next year. The only thing that comes to mind that was his idea, and he primarily took on execution of, was the white boards in the Union to facilitate better communication. Just Ask was NOT his project alone. Flagship Documents was NOT HIS PROJECT AT ALL. I can not comment on the fork situation in Sage Dining Hall, as I rarely eat there, and when I do, usually have soup or a sandwich, neither of which requires the use of a fork.
If elected, Andrew Neidhardt would make a poor Grand Marshal, at best. He would burn bridges that Zwack has put effort into reconstructing. While Zwack may have faults, he will accomplish a lot more, especially behind the scenes were most people don’t see, like this year. But he wont be so friggin’ righteous about it.
I concur with RPI Student – I am a fan of soup as well, and have had no needed for a fork when eating soup.
pineapple
Someone asked for commenters to state reasons to endorse one candidate rather than reasons NOT to endorse Neidhardt. I’d like to see the opposite–I’d like RPInsider to say why they chose Neidhardt over Zwack, Hunt, and Shah, and why Dicker is preferable to Askew, Sptiz, and Mahonchak.
Media endorsements can heavily frame the public opinion and discussion–just look how often the poly’s endorsement has been referred to in this thread. I think RPInsider should have more respect for the weight this responsibility carries. I’ve read a lot by each of the candidates and interacted with them in person, and I can certainly attest to the fact that a one-and-a-half page summary written by the candidates themselves is not enough to make a selection in this tough field.
If Neidhardt is indeed involved with RPInsider, then endorsing him is downright appalling. If this is the case, and an endorsement acknowledged that but gave a very thorough analysis of the choice, it might be very informative. Endorsing him in secret, though, is just dishonest.
I have watched the debates, I have read the question slates, I partook in the endorsements process for The Poly, and I have read the RPInsider endorsement. Here’s my personal take on the GM race (not at all reflective on the Poly endorsement, by the way) and for the record, I am on a friendly basis with each of the three candidates but am not exactly aligned with any one specific candidate in terms of bias.
Zwack was a good GM for this particular year. We needed someone who could step in and build bridges. His leadership was specific to what was needed at the time, and he filled the role admirably. He was definitely what was needed this past year after Kara Chesal; however, considering the pivotal year that this was, I don’t feel like as much came out of his term as it could have. I think he has been good and continue to be good—I just don’t feel like his leadership will be *great* over the next year. I think there’s a reason that there’s never been a two-term GM before and don’t think the precedent should necessarily be broken.
At the beginning of campaigning, I didn’t think it likely I would consider Neidhardt as a strong candidate, but certain things made me reconsider that notion. Neidhardt has an incredibly strong platform and has a well thought-out idea of how he will approach achieving his goals. He acknowledges where students are discontent and is very passionate about getting things fixed … I question his ability to be smart while maintaining that passion though. The emails sent out as part of the Activity Fee nonsense in the Senate say that he is a little quick to jump the gun and doesn’t think of all outcomes to his actions before doing them. These acts were a sort of political taboo that Neidhardt should know better than to engage in from his experience on the Senate and otherwise. That being said, I definitely think he has the best plan for what he wants to accomplish and how to get it done (the second part is something rarely seen with GM candidates from my four years of sitting through endorsements).
Finally, I think Hunt has grown a lot from where he was last year and greatly improved as a candidate. He is a sort of middle ground between Zwack and Neidhardt in terms of personality, which is good for getting things done without blowing anything up. Some of the jabs at Zwack over the past couple of weeks, however, have hit me the wrong way and I think he loses a little of the personality that makes him likable when he’s campaigning because of his intensity. I think he needs to go back to his more laid-back personality if he wants to win over some voters. His ideas are good, but he needed a little more definition in his platform from when I saw him at endorsements. I think he’s developed his ideas a bit further, but I’d still like to see more realistic plans.
So just my thoughts on the matter. I decided who I’d vote for in the primaries today, but I’m still not sure about final elections … I’m leaving it open until I see the final debates (which I hope are miles better than the primary one).
It sounds to me like RPI Student is a disgruntled candidate or something, maybe a member of the sign policy team? There’s definitely way more bias in his statements than anything RPI insider said.
@Interesting I am not publishing an endorsement
of a candidate.
Just for a little clarification about what’s floating around from the mudslingers in the blogosphere: I had absolutely nothing to do with the RPInsider Endorsement. Anyone who says otherwise is telling an outright lie.
I’d also like to bring to people’s attention the fact that no one questioned this process last year:
http://www.rpinsider.com/archives/1182
I don’t know if it was because of the candidate that was chosen or what, but I think it’s kind of hypocritical not to question one year but to do so the next (unless those of you posting comments are freshman, in which case you are awesome to be so involved in this stuff already).
The RPInsider Election Team fully supports opposition and encourages constructive criticism of our opinion, and hope that this allows you to make a more informed decision. Our intent was never to tell you who to vote for, but to present our findings as fairly as possible and encourage you to consider this view. I don’t know how many times we can reiterate ourselves regarding your concerns, but we would ask that you accept our decision for what it is: our opinion, which is based on the research of a team of individuals unaffiliated with any of the candidates or their campaigns. I would assume that you understand that with this level of involvement and knowledge of what is going on with the school, a number of individuals related to both RPInsider and the Political Team know the candidates and certainly have their own personal opinions regarding their abilities and their experience. That said, we have done our best to represent our opinion as to who would do the best job, and we have attempted to describe in detail the sources that we took into consideration while making our decision, and the process we employed in presenting this endorsement.
Regarding the Poly, we do not suggest that we agree with everything that was said in their statement, but we thought that they presented a very strong argument with valuable opinions, and we would promote your consideration of what they published. We thought it necessary, though, to come to a conclusion, and in an above comment, we made a quick pass at supporting why we disagree with the Poly’s opinion of Neidhardt. Although much of the information was taken from sources that he himself published, we believe that his success in these various endeavors, and his presence on campus, suggests the professionalism that has come under question. We understand your concerns, but have presented our evidence for believing otherwise.
We appreciate the more constructive comments which have been raised regarding all of the candidates, their strengths and weaknesses, and why you have varied opinions on who would be best suited to lead us. This is a far more productive conversation which we would like to encourage. It is true that all candidates have strengths and weaknesses, all candidates certainly have valuable experience that would lead us to believe that they could handle the position well. This is definitely a strong group of candidates, and we understand why this is such a difficult decision.
We would also like to take this opportunity to answer the question about how we arrived at Neidhardt and Dicker and didn’t select any of the other candidates. First of all we had to rule out Shah, Askew, and Mahonchak because we did not receive a submission from any of these candidates. While some of them did have some good points during the debates and in the Poly, we did not wish to endorse a candidate who did not take the time to construct a statement for us. If they didn’t take the time now to write a short statement, who’s to say they will spend the necessary time working on important issues.
For the remaining PU candidate, Mike Spitz, our reasoning against endorsing him was based on his statement, which consisted of a list of things that sounded to us like a description of the PU position. He did not mention any clear goals outside of what was already expected of him in that position. We understand the the PU role is not always characterized by goals and initiatives, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change.
In the race for GM, we were left with three candidates: Hunt, Neidhardt, and Zwack. We were able to rule out Hunt because he used most of his statement to talk about what Zwack did this past year, as opposed to talking about himself and his plans as GM. We did like that he wanted to involve and inform students more, but in the end he was too focused on being anti-Zwack than being the best GM candidate. Zwack’s platform this year left a lot to be desired as he seemed to be running entirely on the fact that he was the current GM. While we feel he has done a good job this year as GM, we would have liked to hear less about what he has done and more about his plans for next year. We know he has the experience, relationships, and skills to get things done, but we have no idea what those things will be if he is elected. Neidhardt, on the other hand, laid out a clear direction he would take if elected as GM, which is comprised of communication and student input. Both of these concepts are echoed in Dicker’s plans and are the driving concepts for RPInsider. That’s why we chose to endorse Neidhardt and Dicker.
Also, although this may be outside our realm of expertise, in response to above comments, we would like to endorse soup. We realize that this may be met with controversy, and have few sources to support our choice, but this is our opinion, and we hope that you will take it into consideration when choosing what to eat the next time you visit Sage Dining Hall.
Cara, RPInsider was smaller last year, there were fewer candidates, and Ben Hunt did not even submit a form.
But the main elephant at hand, as you probably know, is that there have been many suggestions that some portion of the RPInsider Editorial team coincides with some portion of ResLife staff – and if that’s likely, it must also be likely that they, as ResLife people, know other ResLife people very, very well – and likely have a close relationship with Mr. Neidhart.
Nobody was surprised when RPInsider decided to endorse Mr. Neidhart. Be honest with yourselves; does this not smell fishy?
Sorry, didn’t see the last post before mine from the elections team:
“First of all we had to rule out Shah, Askew, and Mahonchak because we did not receive a submission from any of these candidates. While some of them did have some good points during the debates and in the Poly, we did not wish to endorse a candidate who did not take the time to construct a statement for us.”
Kind of seems inconsistent with:
“Ben Hunt did not respond to our email, and so we are left with no choice but to look at this year’s GM Week Poly for platforms and other comments.”
@Dan
I’m not questioning that it smells fishy, but I also believe that RPInsider had a previous alignment with Zwack (they have gone back on negative comments about him on certain issues and have constantly made very good comments about him when others wouldn’t necessarily agree with the opinion). So, I believe that there is a mixed bag, as with many endorsement procedures (look and see if you think the IFC endorsement is exactly unbiased). Not saying it’s good, just saying the bias (unfortunately) exists.
But yeah, just because you believe this one smells particularly fishy doesn’t mean that you can ignore the fishiness when it’s convenient for your opinion. That was my only point in the previous post.
It’s a blog that’s anonymous and opinionated. If you don’t want that, don’t read it I guess …
I’m actually kind of disappointed by the amount of participation in that facebook group. It’s kind of died down lately. Now is the most important time too.
@Dez
First let me start of by thanking RPInsider for this endorsement and let me ensure the public that I have no prior affiliation with this group. In response to the quote above my answer is simple, they never responded. Months before budgeting actually began in late January I was put in charge of making sure Cheerleading, Crew, Cycling, Club Lacrosse, Outing Club, Rugby, Sailing, Ski Club and Ski Team all had budgets to work with. After contacting club officers and spending several hours with these clubs some were still unaccounted for. One club managed to contact me over the long winter break but I was unfortunately unable to meet them in person as we started budgeting the day we returned to campus (which was earlier than everyone else). I supposed it’s possible that their club officer contact information was out of date but for the only other reason I was ever unable to meet with a club was because (despite several emails) I simply never heard back from them.
This problem has occurred across the executive board which is one of the reasons my first initiative as PU will be to personally meet with all club officers ensuring that they have a constitution, their contact information is easily accessible and accurate in addition to hearing their concerns or questions about the Union. It appears that a lack of communication between the Executive Board and the student body has failed us once again. Bridging this gap is only the first of many changes to come.
@Cara R
Yeah, it wasn’t really non-fishy last year. People weren’t sure what to make of it when Zwack got the RPInsider endorsement. It was certainly expected, and few people cared… But with Andrew Neidhart seeming to be that bit closer, it just stinks all the bit more.
Jay – I feel that the problem is just with facebook’s message board system. Frankly, it’s shit. Once you start to get about 20 threads, some with multiple pages… You just don’t want to fumble around that shit any more. I look at it, but I see a wall of links instead of a few good conversations, and I’m turned off.
Stefan Dicker was a very poor endorsement. Stefan Dicker may speak and write well, but he performs with supreme incompetence. He was rude during our clubs budgeting meeting; not paying attention to what we were telling him about our budget and playing on his computer instead. I find this type of behavior rude.
I’m late to the party on this, but it looks like Enjuhneer disagreed with you, RPInsider:
http://www.enjuhneer.com/archives/223-being-a-girl-too
Same guerilla endorsement appeared in her Poly comic on Wednesday.
I love all the squawking. If you want to know how important the administration considers actual student representation in the decision-making process, just go ask the Faculty Senate.