The first stage of the elections for the student government kickstarted on the 12th of August with the speeches from the candidates contesting for the Ministry of Campus and Culture. The candidates nominated for the three positions included Harigovind Geetha Krishnan, Krithvi Vasan, Yuthika Mehrotra, Pari Khanteri, Trisha Saini. There is a considerably large number of first years contesting in this election compared to the second and third year students.
Seeing that this part of the student government is oriented towards the working of campus and contributing to Krea’s culture. With a change in composition new officeholders could possibly redirect efforts of having a vibrant and safe, supportive community at Krea by taking a new approach and direction. The campaigns of the candidates included certain keywords such as “transparency”, “diversity”, “security” and a “positive environment for the students”.
At the informal session, questions poured in about the logistics and finances of what the candidates promised, reasons for standing in this role, certain parts of their speeches as well as their thoughts on increasing student engagement.
All of the contestants for the role of MoCC had mentioned clubs, events and making festival celebrations grander, in some capacity or the other. In the informal session, they were questioned on their knowledge on the logistics and finances of such events since the university is cutting funds and because of this they already moved to a system of 3 festivals.
One of the first year candidates, Yuthika answered this by giving one of the ideas she had mentioned before which was theme days like a Bollywood theme night which would require students to have fun with low costs. Another candidate, Trisha gave her take on this with smaller events and movie screenings already present on campus.
The candidates were asked about their incentives for wanting to be part of the MoCC as a student representative of campus and culture.
Harigovind, through his experience of applying to Krea wanted to increase the social media engagement and the media culture of Krea which the candidate believes would lead to an increased technological presence of the University compared to other liberal arts colleges.
Trisha as another candidate was inspired by the events she experienced as a first year student which the previous MoCC team handled.
The candidates as part of their speeches had mentioned keeping the food related establishments open for a longer time which they were questioned on since Copa Mocha and Old Narsis in the JSW academic block are open almostis almost open the entire day, and New Narsis remainsis open until 2 am. Labour laws of the establishments were brought up since it was only around a 6 hour break of food that the students got because breakfast starts at 7:45 am and one needed to be mindful and sensitive of the lifestyles of those providing services on campus. The candidates collectively agreed with this information and took it into consideration.
One of the students who was a part of the MoCC team during the previous academic year, asked the candidates how they would handle the workload that being a part of the MoCC would bring on. Student engagement for events could get really low for which they would have to take the work on themselves. One of the candidates, Pari answered this question by saying that she would keep track through spreadsheets.
The response towards the speeches of the MoCC were mixed in nature. The students listening to the speeches realized that all of these candidates had potential but they felt that they did not fully understand the role of being a part of the Ministry of Campus and Culture fully. One of the third years present, when asked later, stated that the “The candidates' speeches had potential but I was hoping to learn more about their ideas on the campus as a whole rather than just about events.” Another third year student gave her opinion on the speeches, “ Most of them are not really well researched. They gave ideas for clubs which are not a part of MoCC. As long as you have a plan and budget for yourself you can go to the OSL and figure it out. They had really great ideas but they weren’t really aligning with the role of MoCC”.
The first years said that “We really liked one speech” and “All of them have lots of potential, we’re excited who could win.”
All of us are looking forward to seeing the next stages of the election process unfold in the coming weeks!
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