Student Government Enthusiasm Stalls Among Student Body
SLU students are deciding who to elect as the president of their student government, as the Thelmo election enters its final stage before the Nov. 14 deadline. The Thelmo election follows the record-breaking turnout in the national midterms, but it has so far failed to generate a matching spirit for electing the next student body leaders.
David Bonny ‘19 attended the Thelmo debate on Nov. 6, and was surprised by what he had encountered. “There was almost no one there,” said Bonny. “It was unbelievable to me because this [debate] was in the Winston Room in the middle of the Pub rush.” Bonny said that other than a few current Thelmo members and the candidates themselves, the seats past the first row were left empty.
Student diagnosis on why there is a perceived lack of participation for this year’s election cycle has varied. Tyler Senecharles ‘20 pointed towards the correlation between high-energy elections often coming with high-energy candidates.
“I mean we’ve seen it nationally with candidates like Beto [O’Rourke] and [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez that were able to drive people to the polls, and we saw it a bit with [current Thelmo president] Tinga Adiang last year,” explained Senecharles. “It could just be that people aren’t really feeling the candidates up for election this year.”
Kenyeri Xelhua ‘21 said another issue may be the current reach of Thelmo not being as expansive as one would believe a student government to be. “All the debates have to do with money,” Xelhua said. “I think it should be focused on what can be done for the community, not how much something costs.” The focus on contingency meetings, according to Xelhua, seems to be the detrimental factor in the lack of Thelmo’s presence on campus.
Despite these claims, both of the candidates running for the Thelmo presidency have begun making numerous campaign stops in the last few weeks, stopping by large groups such as the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and La Sociedad Hispana to expand their platforms on campus. Voting for the president position, as well as other positions within Thelmo, is open on SLUWire and will continue until Nov. 14.