To the Editor:

I must admit I was immediately aggrieved by the Our View commentary on the Vanderbilt Student Government's position of sustaining the current requisites for students wishing to run for the office of VSG president. The notion VSG is attempting to subvert democracy is simply ludicrous. That it will "deny the majority of students the opportunity to seek the presidency" is certainly true - but this is not a popularity contest. Someone wishing to orchestrate and run the largest representative body here at Vanderbilt, without having deigned to serve among its constituency and learn the system in previous years, is placing the well-being of this infant organization at risk. To be blunt, if a rising senior had enough name recognition and merely wished to boost their resume, they could theoretically win the presidency without having any true motivation toward leading VSG.

You put forth that "an outsider could learn the ropes, and indeed, proven campus leaders from other student organizations could bring valuable experience and a familiarity with the university to the table;" I don't believe anyone would deny this. These individuals are certainly more than welcome to run for a position in the government or even apply for an at-large committee chair position - simply not the chief executive. The president of VSG should be someone who has been involved in the government before, already has experience and has already "learn(ed) the ropes." Various positions in the House and Senate, or even the Cabinet, provide an incubation period for those students who are interested in bettering this university and its student body. If, for example, the speaker of the house were to seek the office of president, he or she would have already served a year minimum in the House in addition to chairing meetings for a year. The individual's experience on the executive board would provide vast insight into student government operations, and he or she would have a past record of initiatives and resolutions that would help students recognize their dedication to the furtherance of students' concerns.

I would lastly like to address the charge of VSG's "arrogance." The laughably ignorant claim that the simple requirement that the president have experience in government would potentially prevent the discourse of important issues that "have not arisen in (our) meetings" is insulting to me personally as a member of VSG. At the beginning of each session of the House or Senate, time is allotted for members of the student body to come before VSG and lay out concerns they have that they might like to have addressed in addition to those matters already on the table. To date, and I am able to speak only for House sessions, one student has taken advantage of this opportunity. One. I'm afraid I am uncertain as to whether I am amused at or irritated with - even at the university level it seems - the media attempting to distort citizen apathy into government incompetence.

Kyle Larson
Junior, A&S
President, Towers II