Mackenzie Thomas and Jagir Patel have put together an impressive candidacy for the presidency of UNC’s Campus Y, and its members should elect them to lead the organization next year.
Though voting in Campus Y elections is limited to dues-paying members, the Y plays a broad enough role in campus-wide affairs that this election merits attention from the entire student body.
Whether or not you vote in it, its outcome will likely affect you in the coming year.
If you’ve ever eaten Hunger Lunch, if you attended Carolina Kickoff before coming to UNC or if you tuned in to the tuition discussions facilitated by the Y, then this organization has already impacted your experience here.
Four extraordinarily competent, thoughtful and qualified candidates threw their hats in the Campus Y’s ring this year. As Thomas and Patel themselves pointed out, the organization would certainly be in good hands under their opponents, Joseph Terrell and Laura McCready.
The differences between the candidates are nuanced, and it is nearly impossible to convey this distinction succinctly without oversimplifying grossly.
What it seems to boil down to, however, are the candidates’ respective visions for the Y. All the candidates care deeply about activism, engagement and dialogue. Where they diverge is in their conception of the role the Y’s presidents should play in facilitating these goals.
Thomas and Patel hope to provide an organizational structure students can utilize to pursue their social justice aims, some of which are overtly political and some of which are not.
They are committed to allowing these aims to arise organically and have stressed repeatedly that a top-down approach simply doesn’t work when trying to galvanize students to act on issues they care about.
