Student Trustee Debate Liveblog

You’ve seen Nathaniel Rosen ’13 channel his inner Rebecca Black, laughed at the dance moves of Alex Bores ’13, and wondered why the guy in charge of yelling “WE ARE THE STUDENTS” seemed so angry.  Now, they’re debating the issues in hopes of replacing Asa Craig ’11 as the only undergraduate on the Board of Trustees and the Insider is there to liveblog all the action in this six student race.

6:05 PM:  The Forensics and International Affairs Societies are running the debate and it shows; it’s very professionally set up.  A representative of the Forensics Society said, in the interest of full disclosure, that Bores is a debater and, despite not being involved in the planning of the event, this is an obvious advantage.  Also, you haven’t heard of her (I guess her rap video hasn’t dropped yet), but Felema Yemane can’t make the event and actually texted in her platform.

6:08 PM:  Bores spoke ahead of Rosen for the first question and seemed to preempt him on his signature idea, a “Big Red Binder” (which Rosen has with him) full of student ideas and concerns.  Bores seems to be attempting to separate himself from the other four and his strong speaking style helps him in that department.

6:10 PM:  This is clearly a Bores/Rosen race, but Balram isn’t far behind the pack.  Everybody wants to add more trustees, however.  (Perhaps it’s because six of them are running for one seat, but whatever)

6:14 PM:  Samuel Daly wants to “set up some online thing” to reach out to alumni.  He’s clearly out of his league with these experienced buzzword BSers.

6:18 PM:  Can somebody tell these kids that a single past graduate is either “an alumnus” or “an alumna,” never “an alumni”!?!

6:20 PM:  Kat Balram’s talking about Twitter (so relevant).  She’s also going about 1000 words a minute.

6:23 PM:  Samuel Daly apparently hasn’t seen enough cops on campus and wants to avoid “free reign.”  Somebody behind me just mumbled “What the hell is he talking about?”.  Good question.

Lauren Ritter supports incoming SA President Natalie Raps’ idea of expanding Blue Light.  Does she support using student activity fee money to do it?

6:25 PM:  Rosen wants to “increase lighting on campus” and have a shuttle bus that runs every 8 minutes after 2 AM.  No comment.

6:27 PM:  Kat Balram is upset that you’re joking about forcible touching.  Fair enough, but what does this have to do with the Board of Trustees?  Getting many of the similar meaningless buzzwords as the SA races; “awareness,” “outreach,” etc.

6:30 PM:  Felema Yemane has arrived and Lauren Ritter is wondering if suicide victims are most traumatized by housing or because “classes are just.  too.  difficult.”

6:33 PM:  Rosen wants gym memberships to be free, but reports that Day Hall told him there wasn’t the space.  Naturally, this means we need to build more gyms.  This is coming from the candidate putting rising cost of attendance at the top of his campaign?  Rosen:  The Muscle Milk Candidate

6:35 PM:  Felema Yemane wants to “work with the Faculty Senate” to do something with test dates, or something like that.  Also, another BS social media buzzword:  “We are the Facebook Generation.”  Good thing this isn’t a drinking game.

Oooooh!  Moderator:  We’ve heard from “Fell-eh-ma”  Felema: MY NAME IS FELEMA (death stare!)

6:36 PM:  Kat Balram and Nat Raps want students to be more “reactive.”  Uh . . .

6:39 PM:  Bores on Mental Health:  “Faculty are part of the problem.”  Ouch.

6:40 PM:  Samuel Daly wants to get rid of homework over break and doesn’t seem to like winter.  Oh, and add another Slope Day.  Cool story bro.

6:43 PM:  Felema doesn’t like being labeled as “the diversity candidate.”  Then she goes on to list every race-specific group (Black Students United, ALANA, etc) on campus.

6:46 PM:  Kat Balram:  “Polls and statistics are not enough.”  Direct shot at Bores’ plank of Sun polling.

6:47 PM:  Bores complaining about survey showing minority faculty “less satisfied” then white faculty.  Possible solution?  Piss off the white faculty more.

6:48 PM:  Daly on diversity:  “I know a group came in and did a little Chinese dance in my business class last week.”

Daly is talking about putting events online.  Apparently he hasn’t been to, uh, the Cornell website.

6:52 PM:  I’ve counted at least five instances of “We’re all Cornellians”.  Are these kids using the same speechwriter?

6:54 PM:  International Affairs Society Moderator:  “Rash, harsh, and bold” decisions by administration.  Biased much?

6:55 PM:  Organizers of future debates with student politicians should ban the word “outreach.”

6:56 PM:  Bores is invoking the Willard Straight takeover.  Isn’t it nice that we glorify a group of kids that took over a student building on campus with assault rifles?

7:00 PM:  Daly:  “Like I said, Alex’s idea . . .”

7:02 PM:  Ritter brings up the Law School’s Regulation Room as an example of something the Trustees should adopt.  Good idea.

7:04 PM:  Do these people seriously think the idea of “reaching out to students” is new or novel?

7:06 PM:  Questioner:  Most of what the Trustees do, well, nobody cares or knows about (investments, etc).  How are you going to learn along the way?  Oh, silly questioner, these kids already know everything!

Also, Nighthawk is the greatest name ever.

7:08 PM:  Daly:  “You know, Cornell’s motto, every study.”  What?

Also, Ritter seems well-versed in these issues and articulate as well.  I shouldn’t hold her lack of rap single against her.

7:10 PM:  Rosen’s calling Nighthawk by his much lamer name, Darrick.  Boo.

7:12 PM:  Felema:  “Student trustees have to listen first.”  Good.

Bores wants to go to every UA and SA meeting.  That’s the biggest promise any of the candidates have made all night.

7:13 PM:  Daly:  “Obviously with the SA, we have a whole bunch of leaders on campus.”  Again, no comment.

7:15 PM:  Rosen:  “No-brainer that the student trustees have to be at SA meetings.”

Felema Yemane:  “North Campus Programming Council had an amazing concert this year.”  Maybe she’s referring to the West Campus Programming Council, but even still, did she not see this?

7:19 PM:  Rosen:  “I got into the race because of rising tuition.”  Blames flaws in the “ranking system” for financial woes.

7:21 PM:  Yemane wants to work with OMEA to “institutionalize programs to help make connections.”  What?

7:22 PM:  Bores bring up his experience with COLA as a plus in his column.  We’ll get to that later.

It’s Nighthawk, not Darrick.  NIGHTHAWK.

7:24 PM:  Sun staffer Tajwar Mazhar:  How do you keep issues like the water bottle ban alive when the discussion ends?

Hopefully you don’t.

7:26 PM:  Yemane makes the first explicit mention of “what happened to Africana.”

Bores is complaining about “conflict minerals from the Congo.”

7:28 PM:  It’s over!  Full recap later.