I have a few issues with the editorial board making their recent student body officer endorsements, and they are all given with the utmost respect to the Daily Campus.

The first is that the Daily Campus, as a newspaper, could better serve its readers by listing the talking points of all candidates, as opposed to focusing on just one for each position. 

These couple of weeks are a time to filter through the ubiquitous Facebook groups and campaign posters in search of the one or two things that make a person go “Hey, that’s a great idea.  I’d like to see that happen”. 

From the amount of information I’ve heard about each candidate, they all have very diverse plans for how to improve the experience of an SMU student, and perhaps what might be important to the four people interviewing them could be different from the 5,000 other SMU undergrads. 

Continuing on that point, though I appreciate the service that Daily Campus writers and editors give to our school, none of them were elected to be the voice of the student body. 

Though I know they are an independent source in principle and have every right to state their opinion on the issue, they should apply tact in doing so.  Though it is not officially an SMU entity, the paper is available everywhere and to everyone on campus. 

In much the same way as it would seem silly for me to make posters titled “Eric Park’s opinions on Student Body Officers” and put them up all over campus, I believe it is irresponsible for the Daily Campus editorial board to advertise their own opinions (I do acknowledge the irony of this sentence in the context of my opinion article that I intend for students to read).

Though I would not attack the editorial board’s unbiased approach to interviewing and endorsing candidates, the fact remains that more than likely the members of the board had personal relationships with candidates or those close to the candidates which, due to human nature, affected their endorsements, whether consciously or unconsciously. 

This article is a humble suggestion from a student who believes in the power of a student-run news source but would hope that the Daily Campus in the future would show respect to the candidates and to the student body by advertising the candidates and the issues, not their personal opinions.

P.S. To SMU students, if you are planning on voting in the Student Body elections, do it based off of your own knowledge and opinions, not someone else’s.

­–Eric Park
Junior accounting major