This editorial board chose not to endorse the pairs of Ron Hinton and April Love or John Secrest and Anita Simha for UNC-system Association of Student Government’s president and vice president. While both sets of candidates showed a passion for ASG, they could not make up for the issues in their platforms.
Hinton and Love were creative, well-spoken and clearly had ASG experience. While we liked their idea of attendance requirements at meetings, the rest of their platform seemed over-ambitious.
For example, getting a bill introduced in the N.C. General Assembly to regulate textbook prices is admirable, but it is unrealistic to expect any real progress on this goal.
In addition, they proposed replacing College Board’s CSS PROFILE with an in-house system. This is an unrealistic and expensive goal. Hinton and Love know a lot about ASG but lack the understanding of the real limits that exist in the organization.
Secrest and Simha will no doubt do great things in the future, but in this race, they are the weakest ticket.
Because they entered the ASG race so late, their platform is plagued by unimportant proposals. They propose that ASG “conduct a review of … how food options are determined.”
With respect to the current state of higher education in North Carolina, combined with the scrutiny ASG has faced recently, it is safe to say a review of dining options doesn’t belong anywhere in their platform.
They also propose Skyping into student congress meetings throughout the system to receive questions — a poor use of everyone’s time.
