EDITORIAL
This Tuesday, March 16, Loyola elected a new student body president. Who knew?
A stunning 14.4 percent of Loyola undergraduates voted in the recent SGA elections. That’s a formidable 523 out of 3,631 eligible voters.
Congratulations. Loyola students of all stripes have reached a new low in campus participation.
Voting for SGA representatives is easy – it doesn’t get any easier. Every student here is registered with a Blackboard account, so voting only takes a couple of clicks. Passerbys could also vote between classes in the Danna Center.
Voting was open for two days, yet the student showing was pathetic at best. Was the incumbent administration just so perfect that nobody cared for change? Doubtful.
Apathy is nothing new to this generation of Loyola students. But the turnout this year is significantly lower than last — roughly 20 percent lower. So, either students care much less than before – possible, but not probable — or other factors have come in to play.
Granted, publicity on the part of candidates was pitiful at best, while advertising by the SGA itself was nonexistent. Aside from a few random Cody Dardeau fliers or Kate Gremillion signs and chalking, it was hard to even tell that elections were happening at all.
In fact, Michael Morin, the vice-presidential candidate had more campaign material then the SGA, Dardeau and Gremillion combined – and he was running unopposed.
More worrisome than a lack of advertising is the fact that only 14.4 percent of students cared enough to vote. That means that at 85.6 percent of students could not have cared less about who would run their SGA; that 85.6 percent of lives were not affected enough by the SGA to even vote.
The SGA prides itself on being an organization of the students for the students, but a mere 14 percent of students is not a viable represention of the student body.
Regardless of where we lay fault for the low turnout, the integrity of the SGA’s claim to represent the student cannot help but be compromised.
If the students don’t care to be represented by the SGA and its president, and aren’t affected by its actions, why are students paying for the president’s tuition?
