Alternative Media and the SA

One candidate in the run-off has made alternative media and openness an integral part of their campaign. Julie Bindelglass, as former finance chair, I suppose, more so than Kyle Boyer, understands why so many people want openness in our Student Associaiton.

From her campaign website:

Openness

* Penning Our Progress: The Student Association Presidency is not as flashy as it seems. In fact, it is a job of meetings - meeting with administrators to serve as a megaphone for the student voice. I will maintain an executive blog, authored by the entire executive branch, chronicling the day to day work that we do on behalf of the student body.
* Financial Transparency: As Finance Chair, I simplified the financial process and instructed the Executive to place all financial documents online. As President, I will create www.gwsafunds.com to display to students where every cent of their student fee money ends up and allow students to browse all financial documents that are already available to the public, but only in the SA office.
* Proven Performance: As Finance committee chair, one of my top priorities was ensuring that that all meeting announcements, minutes, and agendas were all online in a timely matter. How can student leaders expect that the student body voice their concerns if we don’t know what our student government is working on? As president, every piece of relevant paper will be available to students.

It certainly seems like she wants to make new media a part of her administration, but thus far in her campaign, I don't think we've seen her make any substantial changes to how campaigns here at GW are run. And during her stint as finance chair, we didn't see any changes in openness.

And Kyle Boyer has, for the most part, not really mentioned this aspect. He's mentioned the importance of openness and new media, blogs, and the like, but hasn't put it into practice.

So, here's my question: How do each of the run-off candidates plan to use new media to increase openness between the SA and the student body, and do you really think that it will change anything?

Make sure to go ask your questions for the LIVE SA PRESIDENT RUN OFF DEBATE here!!