The election season for Student Association president and vice president has officially begun, and the two candidates for president are Andre Nichols and Omar van Reenen.
Both candidates are current members of SA, with Nichols serving as a senator and attorney general for the 2017-2018 academic year and van Reenen serving as a senator, director of diversity, equality and inclusion, and SUNYSA representative for Oswego State and other four-year colleges in the SUNY system.
The election this year will feature two debates. One, held on Thursday, was between vice presidential candidates Catherine Millington and Edward Kelly. The presidential debate will be held at 5 p.m., April 5, in Shineman 172. At these debates, candidates are asked questions, of which they have no prior knowledge, relating to the way they hope to run SA and how they will approach certain campus issues.
This election is the first in at least two years to have more than one candidate for the office of president. Last year’s election saw current
SA President Dalton Bisson run unopposed, while Daisie Bancroft and Robert Taglia ran against each other for vice president, with Bancroft securing a majority vote.
Candidate van Reenen has been a member of SA for two years and has pushed for legislation relating to diversity and equal rights, as well as ecological sustainability. His position as SA director of diversity, equity and inclusion pushes for social justice and equality among minority groups on campus.
van Reenen says he is currently working on legislation intended to address the funding gap between male and female club sports, where female club sports teams have received thousands of dollars less per year in funding from SA when compared to their male counterparts.
“We refused to allow our SA fee be used to fund inequality and demanded equal pay for equal play between our women’s and men’s club sports teams, because the measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls,” van Reenen said in a press release.
Candidate Nichols has served as a member of SA for two years as well and has also worked on legislation relating to diversity and equal rights. Nichols has been active in the establishment of organizations like The Association of Latino Professionals for America, Oswego chapter, as well as Kinks and Kurls.
Nichols says he has also pushed for equal funding between the different club sports teams and worked on a resolution that urges college administrators and local politicians to condemn a hate crime that occurred against a transgender individual in the county.
“While this hate crime victim was not a student, I still felt it important that SA as an organization recognize the incident and stand with the victim,” Nichols said in a press release.
van Reenen is a sophomore international student from Namibia, who is double-majoring in biochemistry and political science.
Nichols is a junior from Utica, New York, and is majoring in political science.
As a SUNYSA representative, van Reenen works directly with the SUNYSA student government, helping to pass legislation and coordinate SUNY-wide events and programs with Oswego State and other four-year institutions.
As Oswego SA attorney general, Nichols works in the legislative branch of the Oswego State SA, working with students when they file a grievance against an SA organization or SA itself in cases where they believe the SA bylaws have been violated and they have been mistreated.
This year, all students who pay the SA activities fee will be able to vote in the election via LakerLife April 17 through 18. An email with the appropriate information will be sent out when voting opens. After voting ends, the Senate will vote on the election results, the SA Supreme Court will validate the results, and the winning candidates for president and vice president will be sworn in on May 1.
Photo provided by Andre Nichols
