Andrew Madorsky and Sean Hayes

Next week, the Voice and The Hoya will interview all the candidates running for GUSA President and Vice President and give their endorsement of one or two lucky pairs. But don’t take our word for it! Vox wants you to make a (more or less) informed decision when roughly a fourth of you decide to vote in this year’s GUSA election.

We’ve sent surveys to all eight presidential candidates and will post them as we receive them. Below, Sean Hayes explains why he and VP candidate Andrew Madorsky deserve to be elected as top execs.

What are three things you’d try to accomplish as GUSA execs?

• The Career Center is not just for the MSB. It seems that our “school-wide” career center really only caters to the needs of MSB finance and accounting students. Why shouldn’t students interested in pursuing fields like journalism, government, public policy, and nursing have access to great internship and full-time job opportunities like those same MSB majors currently do in their field of interest? We would work to restructure the Career Center by petitioning it to establish new relationships with companies and networks outside the finance world.

• Mentor Programs. The Georgetown Alumni network is an incredible resource that remains largely untapped by the student body. With policies we hope to implement, students will have access to contact listings and work profiles for Georgetown Alumni that can be used to make valuable connections that are so essential in today’s economic environment. We would set up a program for students interested in being linked with former alumni in order to build relationships, network, seek advice with career help, and develop a better understanding of what life after graduation entails from the perspective of a person who was in your same shoes a few years back.

• Campus-wide printing services. Many non-MSB students often voice their frustrations that the MSB gets ‘free’ printing. We feel that we can change the system for the better for everyone involved. We think that we would be able to work with the school to enable students to print to any printer on campus, much like MSB students enjoy with the printers at the Tech Center. This would eliminate usage fees at the library (and longer lines due to payment processing), and create a more efficient printing system that everyone can enjoy.

What qualifies you to be GUSA’s next President and Vice President, keeping in mind that how you’d look as an odometer is fair game.

There are several things that qualify us to be the next leaders of GUSA, of which most are largely intangible. While we have the skill set necessary (both of us have taken several leadership roles on campus and have led our respective organizations successfully), that does not always extrapolate to success in office.

The GUSA presidency is the highest student-elected office for a reason. We are obviously motivated by the incredible opportunity to serve as representatives for the students and as catalysts for change. Most importantly, we feel we have a great understanding of what the student voice wants. This combination of skills, motivation, and inherent understanding of the student voice make our ticket very qualified to fill this prestigious office.

If GUSA had unbridled control of all things Georgetown, what’s the first thing you would change?

If GUSA had complete control over all things at Georgetown the first thing we would implement is stronger campus-wide safety. We would love to employ more DOPS officers and provide better SafeRides services in hopes of preventing burglaries and sexual assaults that we so often hear about.

The reality of the issue is although we will work hard on issues like safety and campus-wide wireless, we realize we do not have unbridled control over things that administration has consistently refused to budge on. As the representatives of the student voice we want to target things that we truly can change and control, like a better Career Center for the entire student body.

How would you characterize Dowd’s time in office?

There are several things that Pat Dowd has done effectively throughout the process. From the start of his campaign to his soon-to-end tenure, he has always been practical and actionable. He realizes not only the limitations of the GUSA presidency, but also the opportunities. He never promised any extreme ideas, because he and James realized that they couldn’t realistically assure success in trying to
implement a radically new alcohol policy or a 5-star dining hall. They began with a couple of creative ideas (one of them being the Summer Fellows Program), and left the rest up to the students. For these
reasons, they were able to manage their priorities, and have had a very successful time in office. They have represented Georgetown well.

How do you feel about the findings of the SCUnity report and GUSA’s reaction to their recommendations?

We are very happy with the recent findings of the SCUnity report and of the way GUSA has also reacted to these. SCU has worked extremely hard researching and forming new ideas to bring a better understanding and acceptance of diversity among organizations, leaders, and students as a whole at Georgetown. The fact that 6/8 SCU proposals were passed by GUSA emphasizes how sound their ideas really were. Much like the way we intend to attack issues if elected, SCU has been very action-based, which is the only way to truly get things done and implement change.

Do you support SAC’s decision to write GUSA out of its constitution?

Yes. Like former SAC chair Sophia Behnia said, SAC is an independent organization from GUSA and has been for years. We believe SAC should have the right to choose their leaders like almost all organizations on campus do, and think this will only strengthen the relationship between GUSA and SAC in the long run. It is obviously important for GUSA and SAC to maintain a strong relationship, but GUSA should not have influence over leadership positions in SAC.

Photo courtesy Sean Hayes.

Other GUSA surveys:

Cory Perkins makes his case

George “Brock” Magruder wants to be your man

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.