Last year at this time, I was campaigning for student body president. I tried to ensure that “Bourne to Lead” was plastered across campus. Along with current president Joey Fiore, we campaigned as hard as possible, and because of the effort put into campaigning, we were able to encourage more than 4,000 students to get out and vote, nearly double the requirement.
This year, to be honest, I had been thinking of the position almost until the day of nominations. I had the drive, and I have a love and respect for the organization and the work it does. However, I saw in vice president Rob Ranley a candidate who has the drive, the experience, the dedication, the ideas and the energy needed to be a great president. It is for this reason and for this reason alone that I felt comfortable declining my nomination, even though so many people were pushing me toward accepting it.
When Marines Piney was campaigning for the position as well, although I supported Ranley wholeheartedly, I was still not worried for the future of the organization. She is a sitting vice president with a history of leadership, a person who could effectively lead.
With the recent nomination of Senator Dan Kamyck, I have never feared so much for the future of the Student Government Association (SGA) and of the student body. He has shown neither the effort nor the results necessary to qualify him to be president of the organization.
He claims to be the SGA director of outreach, who has advised SGA vice presidents on public relations and marketing strategies. If this was true, then why, as a current vice president, have I gotten no advice from him? Why is it that the one time he reached out to the executive board, he came to a meeting, took notes of projects that needed his attention and then disappeared?
Kamyck has lied to the Senate and to the student body with this claim. If he plans to fix SGA’s public relations and bring it to the next level as president, then why is there nothing he can claim to have done that has benefited anyone this year? Why is it that Kamyck claims to have aided Ranley, yet when Ranley asked Kamyck for assistance with public relations for the Renewable Energy Fee, Kamyck did nothing? Why did Ranley have to work alone with his assistant vice president and the Husky Energy Action Team (HEAT) to promote the event when SGA has a director of outreach who is responsible for this? If you know of anything SGA has done this year, it is not because of Kamyck; it is due to the hard work and dedication of the vice presidents and the senators who were managing the projects.
The choice is yours. Beginning tomorrow, April 1, go to the myNEU portal and vote for your next student body president. Vote for Kamyck and look forward to nothing more than talk and a year void of results. Elect Ranley, and you will see the most influential and hardworking student government you can imagine.
– Christopher Bourne is SGA vice president for student services.
