The Bowdoin Orient

Today the polls will open for Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) elections. This year, the student body faces a choice between two candidates for president. The new president will organize BSG’s response to important campus initiatives and must ensure that meaningful and effective change is enacted in order to meet new challenges. While both candidates have their merits, I endorse Harriet Fisher ’17 for president.

This year, BSG has emerged from the shadows and overcome its past inertia to become the best platform students have to voice their needs, concerns and complaints on the status of our community. This year’s events and controversies have shown that BSG must be able to immediately connect with all students, the Bowdoin community and the outside world. The president must therefore be competent, committed and willing to push the administration in the direction that will most benefit students. The president must be persistent in these efforts. Satisfaction at any point will sterilize the BSG.

Both candidates have emphasized the need for our campus to heal from past events. They have both called for disruptive disunion to be transformed into compassionate understanding. Fisher already pursues these objectives. During her time at Bowdoin, she has engaged with the student body in a variety of meaningful ways. Fisher has held positions as Vice President for Student Organizations and a seat on the Student Activities Funding Committee, as Reed House communications director, as a Women’s Resource Center student director and as a Student Activities student fellow. In short, Fisher has been involved in almost all aspects of campus life, and these experiences demonstrate her ability to work with a wide variety of students. 

Fisher has been tried, tested and has proven to be a remarkable student leader. Her goals to overhaul the BSG At-Large positions, to lobby the faculty on an extended Thanksgiving break and to institutionalize a process for students seeking to pursue research are sensible, achievable and put students first. Her familiarity with the institutions and individuals who lead the College will ensure that BSG is successful in its endeavors next year. 

Fisher’s challenger, Justin Pearson, has a strong platform replete with aspirational rhetoric. Unfortunately, rhetoric is not sufficient: he has not told exactly what reforms he seeks and how he will achieve them. Pearson has worked to improve Bowdoin over his three years at the College, and it is my hope that he will continue to do so in a different way.