Below, the Editorial Board outlines the platforms of the three candidates, all of whom are write-ins, before giving its endorsement.
Brendan McGuire
Integral to second-year Brendan McGuire’s platform is increasing the frequency and visibility of Days of Service in order to spark interest in community involvement around campus, and in turn enhance involvement in the already-strong organizations dedicated to the surrounding community. However, McGuire’s platform is particularly unique and valuable because of his past experience as communications and social media intern at Chicago Votes. McGuire hopes to reach out to the student body through social media and strategic student-wide e-mails, tools he has utilized with success in the past. He plans to use the position of Liaison to create campaigns spanning multiple media platforms for participation in surveys concerning issues important to the University community—such as U-Pass—the results of which he hopes will precipitate collective student advocacy. McGuire admits that the practical mechanisms behind implementation of his larger goals are, as of yet, unclear, but his previous experiences with Chicago Votes and the Neighborhood Schools Program are evidence of his ability to adapt quickly to new situations and responsibilities.
Kenzo Esquivel
First-year Kenzo Esquivel believes that a strong, self-sustaining, cohesive culture of community service is needed on campus. He believes that in order for this to happen, student mentalities toward the surrounding community must be changed. He intends to initiate this change through improving the quality and consistency of training for Chicago Life Meeting leaders, who as a body are currently inconsistent in the messages they send first-years about students’ relationships with the South Side. He also seeks to establish a quarterly meeting between community service RSOs (CSRSOs) and community-based RSOs like Students for Health Equity and the UChicago Climate Action Network, which are not directly involved in community service as it is commonly understood, but nevertheless serve and are deeply embedded in the community. While these changes would initially impact those already interested or involved in service—RSOs would gain from interacting with each other and sharing their already-established networks and resources—they would eventually have a larger impact on the student body as a whole by creating a centralized space that emphasizes community service on campus, something that the University Community Service Center cannot accomplish alone. In the meantime, though, Esquivel plans to increase the visibility of his proposed initiatives by emphasizing the role of house community service positions and more formally educating the students occupying those positions on the opportunities available through the University and surrounding communities. In addition, Esquivel will advocate for the establishment of a College U-Pass program and supports the creation of a trauma center on the South Side.
Lizzy Noble
First-year Lizzy Noble also centers her platform around increasing engagement between students and the surrounding community. Noble plans to enact this change primarily through organizing events among students as well as between the University and the neighborhood. A staple of Noble’s platform is initiating quarterly community dinners between Hyde Park business owners and all members of the University who desire to come, whether they be students, faculty, administrators, or otherwise. These dinners will only be effective in achieving their goal if executed properly and meticulously, and given her experience organizing these types of dinners in New York neighborhoods, she feels she has the ability to do so. She aims for the first of these dinners to take place during fall quarter next year. Noble furthermore plans to unite campus community service organizations through both a CSRSO fair, which would increase the visibility of these groups, and a coalition, the latter of which would allow groups that pursue community service through many different avenues to converse, learn from each other’s practices, and thus serve the neighborhood and city more effectively.
The Editorial Board endorses Kenzo Esquivel for Community and Government Liaison. Esquivel has a vision for qualitative change in University attitudes toward the surrounding community. He has delineated tangible and feasible initiatives for the coming year that will set the groundwork for this vision while also conferring benefits to current students. Although many of these benefits will be felt by students already involved with community service, the Editorial Board holds that, of the suggested initiatives in the three candidates’ platforms, the most effective way of increasing student involvement in surrounding neighborhoods and the city among students not already engaged in this kind of work is by creating a strong culture of community service on campus. With that said, the Board urges Esquivel, if elected, to recognize bettering communication between the student body and government as an important role of this position. Esquivel has voiced his plans to engage the student body through apparatuses such as house community service leaders, but visibility is a chronic weakness of student government, and one that will not go away without the focus of the Liaison.
Editor’s Note: Liam Leddy recused himself from the consideration of Brendan McGuire’s platform and from the Board’s endorsement.
The Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief and the Viewpoints Editors.