Section
Pepperdine Links
Online Publications
After last week’s SGA election, one race remains undetermined. When none of the candidates for freshman class president secured 50 percent of the vote, SGA Executive Board members announced that a run-off election would be held through Friday at 8 a.m. between the top two candidates, Blake Franks and Alex Pennekamp. Freshmen can vote online at pepsga.com.
At the SGA meeting yesterday, the newly elected senate nominated students for the five SGA positions for which no student applied for candidacy. The vacant positions are one Towers senator, one senior senator, two Greek Row senators and one off-campus senator. After these students accept their nominations, the elected senate will vote on their admittance to SGA in a closed session, said Ryan Harvey, SGA vice president of administration.
The procedure for nominating vacant SGA positions is in the new SGA Constitution. The positions are temporary.
Five candidates ran for freshman class president in the main election, and no one student won half of the class vote, a requirement to win a presidential race according to the SGA Constitution.
“I feel for these two guys,” said SGA President Kevin Mills, who went through the same type of run-off election last spring when he campaigned for his position. “When you put so much energy into an election the first time, it’s hard to gear up for a second one when you think you’re done.”
Both Franks and Pennekamp have been campaigning online and around campus since Sept. 6.
Both hopefuls created a Facebook group earlier this month to promote their platform statements and publicize their names. They used these groups to gain support for their campaigns and to remind students to vote.
“I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and told me ‘I voted for you. Thanks for sending me the [Facebook] message,’” Franks said, who is a staff photographer at the Graphic. “Facebook gave me the opportunity to inform people about how to go about voting.”
Franks also posted flyers on all the freshman dormitories, as well as at other key areas around campus. His flyers played off of pop-culture logos. His “Blake’s on a Campaign” poster used the well-known graphics from the recent film “Snakes on a Plane,” and he modeled his “Blake Is My Homeboy” flyer from the popular “Jesus Is My Homeboy” T-shirts.
During the main SGA election, Pennekamp campaigned with his friends Adrianne Fore and Ryan MacGregor, who were running for freshmen senator positions. Fore and MacGregor were both elected to office.
The three freshmen produced a musical campaign video set to the Romanian pop hit “Dragostea Din Tei,” which they showcased on their Web site, Pepperdine2010.com.
“The video definitely had a bearing on my making it to the run-off election,” Pennekamp said. “The whole point of the video was obviously to be funny, but also to show we have a funny side. Although we’re running for something serious, it let people know we can be fun and approachable when we get elected.”
Pennekamp said his campaigning has been to show his classmates that he is willing to dedicate his energies to the office of class president.
“When people see you putting in that much effort to get elected, they know you’ll put in even more once you are in office.”
In spite of the campaigning efforts of the freshmen candidates, less than 15 percent of the Seaver College student body voted in the SGA election.
According to Mills, less than 500 Seaver College students cast votes in last week’s online election, and the majority of voters were freshmen. Franks said he feels that SGA could have done a better job advertising the voting procedure.
In contrast to the non-freshman races, where most of the candidates were running uncontested, several freshman races were highly competitive. There were five students campaigning for freshman class president in the main election, and 11 running for the four freshman senator positions.
Submitted 09-21-2006
MALIBU, CA
