On March 29, the  Editorial Board of the Old Gold & Black met with the various candidates running for executive positions within Student Government for the next academic year.

Based on our interviews with the candidates, we have voted to make the following endorsements:

In the race for president this year, we were happy to see that three diverse individuals, who represent different areas of campus, decided to run. We believe each candidate has made great accomplishments in their respective niches on campus. Depending on the way students choose to vote, it could be anybody’s race.

We felt that Ann Nguyen has the passion and creativity spurred by her artistic talent to facilitate a positive environment full of fresh ideas for the student body. Her platforms all resonated well with the Editorial Board. We’ve already seen her connect with the student body through mediums like Snapchat, so we have great confidence she would be able to reach the student body effectively.

Skyped in from the Society for Applied Anthropology’s annual meeting in Vancouver, Suvra Mostafa offered a platform unique from other candidates. We appreciated her ideas that were centered on social activism for those who find their voices stifled. She was the only candidate to pose the idea to include a sign in each building that locates all the gender-neutral bathrooms. While we found value in many of her ideas, we felt a few of her platforms — specifically on environmental sustainability — were too broad and exhaustive to be successfully carried out in one year.

Jordan Monaghan’s platforms focused on unity, connection and wellbeing with two sub points underneath that had manageable tasks. His goals were specific, measurable and not exhaustive. We enjoyed hearing his ideas about creating a stronger bond between the student-athlete population and the rest of the student body, as well as working to get the OPCD to release the data collected about summer internships.

We decided by a close margin of one vote to endorse Monagahan. One factor that separated him from the other candidates was the specificity of his goals and the recognition that his tasks were precise and not too broad. We also believe that his outgoing nature will allow him to effortlessly connect with the student body.

For Speaker of the House, we chose to endorse the uncontested candidate Hakeem Oufkir. Over the years, he has been involved in a variety of different areas on campus. Given his diverse range of experiences and thoughtful proposals, we believe that he will be able to reach a variety of students in a variety of aspects of campus.

As the only candidate running, we support Katherine Webster for Treasurer. As a BEM  major with the experience of working as a treasurer for a national nonprofit, we think she is more than qualified for the job.

In the race for Secretary, we unanimously chose to endorse Dante Lizza. We were impressed by Lizza’s precise and detailed ideas and his previous accomplishment of helping reform the process of how student groups obtain a charter. Although Danny Reeves also posed great ideas, we felt that Lizza’s age and experiences put him a step ahead of the freshman and think that Reeves should have more time at Wake Forest before he takes on an executive position.

Overall, we appreciated meeting each candidate, but we suggest each of them pick up an edition of the Old Gold & Black more often.