Presidential Debates: Narcelles & Heisel vs. Nylin & Strohm

At Coe, our Student Senate (http://www.coe.edu/campuslife/studentsenate) is pretty active.  They oversee the school's clubs, budget, and also help to fire up kohawk spirit.  Senate members are elected based on where they live; each dorm has a certain amount of representatives.  They have weekly meetings and make a lot of decisions for the Coe student body.  Apparently each January, a new Student Body President and Vice President are elected.  Coe is very democratic with this system, the candidates form their own party pretty much, complete with a platform.  This isn't like high school student government where the person who receives the second highest number of votes becomes the vice president - there are two pairs of president and vice president running for the positions.  Tonight at the PUB a debate was held, monitored by the Cosmos (the student run newspaper); it was a packed house.  The candidates got a chance to tell us about their platforms and their goals they would like to accomplish if they won the position.  There were questions for both sets of candidates, specific platform questions, and then an open discussion for students to ask their own questions.  Here are some interesting highlights from each of the candidates and I've also attached their platform handout.


Krishen Narcelles and Tyler Heisel "Coe College: It Just Keeps Getting Better!"

• More options in the PUB and vending machines along with healthier choices
• Renovating the International Student Lounge 
• Find a way to have the variety of clubs on campus more known.  It is kind of overwhelming as freshman to see all these clubs and some clubs do go unnoticed.    
• Reduce club emails : as Coe students we got a lot of emails, some that we don't even need to see.  A daily email with club highlights so it's only one instead of thirty or so. 

Justin Nylin and Kelly Strohm "Justin and Kelly, Striving for Excellence Within the Community"

• Reduce club emails (see last point in Narcelles and Heisel)
• Increase school spirit by making places such as Upper Gage and the PUB a more prominent hang out spot
• Laundry View (http://www.laundryview.com/lvs.php) This is a way to see if the laundry machines are open or not and has the ability to shoot you a text when you're laundry is done if you've forgotten about it
• Redo Senate homepage with more options for students to express their concerns 
• Creating weekly office hours where students can drop by to chat  

Overall, I was really impressed by the debates.  Both groups of candidates really did their research and were solid on their platforms; they had done outside research and had talked to many different administrators to see if what they were dreaming of was really a reality.  All four were well spoken and had good presence (by the way, I LOVE public speaking and love watching others speak so I can pick up tips and also find out what speaking habits to avoid).  They all seemed really dedicated to helping the student body and Coe in general.  This debate showed me how much I miss the Student Council I was involved with back in Mt. Horeb and how I will be looking for an opportunity to join Senate.  Voting will take place this upcoming Monday and I feel like I have a better idea of who the candidates are and who I'll be voting for.

So for the second day in a row, in the PUB, I've gotten excited about learning, my writing, and making a difference.  I'm very glad I went to the debates and can't wait to see how the election turns out.  

Here are their platforms: they are small because I've uploaded them as images so if you just click on them you should be able to view them larger.  The top two photos are the Narcelles and Heisel Platform and the bottom photo is the platform of Nylin and Strohm.