Jordan Dale—Financial Vice President Candidate
What gets you excited about this job?
Executive positions that are associated with ASWU are something I have had an interest in for the past few years. I have really enjoyed my time in ASWU and I enjoyed the ability to meet so many people in the position. In Intramurals with its proximity to UREC, I have missed the presence and the involvement. I think there is a lot that has gone on this year that I haven’t been a part of and I was very involved last year. That could be my own fault and also I think it’s part of the separation of the two groups. Mid-year, I was looking at how I could get back involved with ASWU. I like intramurals but I like the student government part of it. I was going through the positions and what would be my best fit. Immediately accounting and numbers and Financial Vice President is kind of where I glided toward. Transparency and involvement are what I have been building on in this campaign and getting people involved is another aspect of the position that is exciting to me.
Do you have any specific plans for next year if you were to get the job?
I’m starting with the involvement aspect. Clubs do a great job on campus and they always want more members so how do we make that happen. I think our biggest target in terms of getting people involved in our clubs is targeting freshmen. Orientation is the time when people are most looking for stuff to do. Portraying those options as clearly as possible gives the best chance for participation. I would set up a table at orientation and we would set it up so there are incentives to go there. Whether it’s a sticker or whatever, and then they have to list four or five clubs they are interested in. In doing so, I would be able to provide club leadership with a contact list of people interested in what they were doing.
What separates you from your fellow candidate?
I think it’s definitely experience. In terms of experience with the budget, $30,000 versus a $670 budget is much more real opportunity for mistakes there and thus a lot more responsibility. I think in terms of awareness, students on this campus love to get involved but they need a helping hand. People like these incentives and reasons to get involved and so I think I bring a little more than Jeff does.
What do you want voters to know more than anything?
I refer to my passion for the position. I want voters to know that what I am saying now will carry through and I want to be held accountable for the things I campaigned on. I want to make sure they become a reality. I think a lot of people run for these positions and have these great ideas, but no one ever holds them accountable for actually putting them in place. I want these things to be publicized. I want to go through with what I promised to the students.
Jeff DeBray—Financial Vice President Candidate
What gets you excited about this job?
The biggest reason why I am running to be your next Financial Vice President is here everyone pays $230 toward an ASWU student fee. However, I feel like students don’t know where their money is going. As your FVP, I just want to make the spending of student money in our budget more accessible and transparent to the student body. I feel like students deserve to know where their money is being spent. Secondly, FVP also works very closely with clubs on campus, just empowering them in any way you can. One addition I would make to that job description is to meet with each club president and each club leadership one-on-one regularly to create a more personal environment. I feel like that kind of relationship can be more successful when you develop a personal relationship with them. Those are two of the biggest reasons why I am excited about running for FVP.
After watching the debate yesterday, it became clear to us that the FVP position has a different feel among voters. Not very many people know much about what the FVP does. It’s not a popularity contest, but rather feels more like a competence test. Both you and Jordan Dale spent much of your time at the debate talking about what the FVP does. Putting aside the fact that you both are competent in the field of finances, what separates you from your fellow candidate?
(Jeff discussed his qualifications at length including his work as a senator, his summer accounting job, his involvement with the ASWU club chartering and finance committee, finance and administration committee for board of trustees).
Something that some people don’t necessarily know: The FVP is often a face for ASWU more than any other position because they meet one on one with clubs and administration frequently to discuss finances. On a daily basis, they are dealing with deposits and balancing the books between ASWU and the business office here at Whitworth. They’re counting the money we receive each day and making sure those two things balance. The also are the chair of club chartering and finance committee as well as Budget committee in spring during May. The biggest thing I want to bring to this position is transparency and accessibility. Too few students just don’t know how their money is being spent and that’s over 500,000 dollars we are getting from students, but students just don’t know where it is going. I just think students deserve to know and that’s the biggest change I want to bring to this position.
You and Jordan are both very qualified, but oftentimes it is not simply about the qualifications, but more how one applies those qualifications.
Four or five weeks ago, I met one on one with Skyler to get an inside scoop on the position and he said it’s not that accounting experience that matters. It’s the communication that’s really important as well because you are the person who is talking to those clubs and your strong communication skills and being able to direct people and manage people as well as tell people yes or no when that is necessary and how they are spending their budget is all really important. I think students often think qualifications are the sole part of the position and that’s partially true. There is an extra piece though that I really plan on bringing to the table.
What do you want voters to know about you more than anything else?
I really care about this university and I have been continuously humbled and just impressed when meeting new students in this campaign. Them approaching me and expressing their support—expressing what they want to see happen from an FVP. So, I really have a desire to meet student needs and where they’re at and communicate accessibility and transparency to how we are spending student money. I hope this been communicated in my campaign, but I am in this for the university; I am in this for Whitworth. We can do better.
ENDORSEMENT
It is the opinion of this editorial board that Jeff DeBray be elected Financial Vice President over his contender–Jordan Dale. While Dale can claim a prominent money management position with his dealings in intramurals, DeBray claims a wider range of experience and can boast a prominent understanding of Whitworth financials on a student and administration level. It is also evident that DeBray is running for FVP with a larger purpose in mind of bettering the university, while Dale, who does support the idea of transparency along with DeBray, expressed his primary goal of being a personal one. While personal motivations are not necessarily a bad reasoning for wanting a job, we feel the larger purpose of serving the Whitworth community (as made evident from DeBray) plays a key role in evaluating the willingness of each candidate to go above and beyond their monetary call of duty.
We would like to close by making clear that both candidates exhibit exemplary qualifications. We are fortunate to have two fantastic people running for the position, but in the case of ASWU FVP as in the case of many other ASWU positions, the question of who would make the best candidate is not solely defined by qualifications, but also what the candidates plan to do with those qualifications.