In a recent vote the R.A. has disallowed co-presidents for this year, though it will reconsider the matter for future years. Neither Jennings nor I was present for this vote to defend our side of the issue. Therefore, we have created a petition to present at the meeting in protest. Please sign below if you would like the question of co-presidency to be decided on by the senior class. Isn't it time that the RC heard the senior voice (Your signature does not reflect a commitment to our campaign rather just your belief that the senior class should have the opportunity to vote for co-presidency)?

We thought we were clear, but are more sorry that the R.A. did not give the petition greater consideration than simply criticizing its language.

There seems to have been a lot of confusion as to why we made the choice that we did. To be honest we never anticipated that the notion of co-presidency would create so much controversy. Initially, we were both planning to run as separate candidates. But in what started out as a simple "how are you" conversation, we discovered that what each of us wanted for the senior class was essentially the same thing. We left it at that. About a week later, we spoke on the phone, and each expressed our excitement about our initial conversation and the similarity of our goals. Jay then said that he wanted to rescind his singular candidacy and instead have us run as co-presidents. The more that we talked the more that we saw the benefits to this scenario. Each of us has known the other since our first year at Bates, but have led different lives. We have been involved in different activities both academically and socially. It was the different perspectives that we brought to the table that we felt made the argument for a joint candidacy strong.

So why would we not just run as President and Secretary? For two reasons, first of all, contrary to the way many of the posters make it seem, you elect the two positions separately, so there is no guarantee that we would both be elected together. Secondly, and most importantly, the class secretary has separate responsibilities from the president. It is true in the past that a single President has done a fine job, but we are trying to change the precedent. If we had been thinking solely about plans for senior week one President may have been enough, but that was not the case. We thought about the entire semester and about the fact that the president is responsible for alumni duties for five years post graduation. There are in fact co-presidents in many of the past classes although they did not share duties until after graduation. In other words, these classes realized that not only would it be more effective to have two people sharing the responsibilities but also that more work would be accomplished. We thought about proposing a new office, such as a Vice-president, but logistically we though this would be more difficult. In other words, we thought it would be more time efficient to expand on an existing office rather than create an entirely new one.

So, although the R.A. has closed debate on the issue for this year, I would encourage other classes to consider the merits of co-presidency. The only real doubts regarding co-presidency addressed how we would handle the commencement speech, and if we could run together why couldn't the entire class do so? This last concern appears to place no trust in the senior class. We highly doubt that the senior would vote for an unreasonable number of co-candidates. It is not as if co-leaders don't currently exist on campus. There are co-presidents for Filmboard, Tourguiding, and almost every sports team at Bates has Co-Captains. Strangely, none of these organizations or teams seem to have any problems selecting their leaders.

The most important thing that we learned from this experience was how out of touch the senior class is with the R.A.. Secondly, we did get to meet a whole bunch of people (including Jennings' boxmate of four years) which is what our campaigns are about anyway. So what now? Jennings is going to run for class president and Jay will run for class secretary.

We encourage all members of the senior class to come to the debate on Wednesday at 7:30 and we further encourage anyone who has any questions about either of our campaigns, or who just wants to say hello, to stop us, call us, or email us. Our Bates experiences have meant so much to us and we would like very much to serve our class in these capacity. Thank you for taking the time to listen.

Jennings Brody '98

Jay Lively '98

Candidates for senior class president and secretary