I chose to visit the college republican’s weekly meeting on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. The meeting was held in the Warwick Center. The meeting was the perfect option for me because I am neither republican nor democrat. Also the majority of African Americans are democrat; I wanted to see if I would get a feeling of opposition since I would be the odd ball person out. Luckily, for me things turned out to be slightly different. Most of the people in attendance were Caucasian except for two, which was me and another black guy. The events mentioned in the next few paragraphs all occurred about 30 minutes before the official meeting started.
I arrived at the meeting place around 6:30pm. I wanted to be early so I could observe everyone’s actions before the scheduled 7:00pm meeting. When I walked through the door, some of the members welcomed me and offered me pizza which they hoped would attract more guests. The highlight of that meeting was the Student Government Association Presidential campaign, so they figured pizza would be nice to give those who attended. While I was being welcomed, a student posted the American flag on the pin up board which everyone seemed very excited about. After the flag was posted the student wrote the title of the meeting and the order of business for the night on the board.
As I looked around after writing the meeting’s agenda down; I noticed that many of the members had laptops with them. One of the laptops showed the owner’s republican pride on the outside with stickers that read “Proud to Be a Republican.” Finally, after writing the meeting’s agenda down, I decided that it would be a good idea to introduce myself, since no one had bothered to ask my name or introduce themselves to me. The conversation went as follows.
“Hello, my name is Victoria Mitchell.”
“Oh, my name is Beth Braxton and I am the President.”
“Who are the people beside you?”
“To my left is Catherine, she is a vice-president and to my right is Drew who is also a vice-president.”
“Ok, well it’s nice to me you’ all.”
After the introduction I decided to look over the meeting’s agenda. The agenda included the pledge of allegiance, executive reports, new business, SGA debate, announcements, and adjournment. Everyone in attendance seemed to be very anxious about the SGA debate. One member even brought her ranch dressing with her for the pizza which made some people laugh. The president proceeded by asking all the members for their personal information, so that everyone could receive their state level membership credentials.
By this time it was 7:00 pm and time for the meeting to start. The vice-president decided that they should wait a few minutes for the late comers. So, the meeting officially started at 7:06 pm. The president asked anyone if they had any funny stories to tell while we waited for the first candidate to arrive. No one had anything to say so; the president decided to tell one of her on, and she also decided to tell everyone that there would be no debate, only campaigning because of time conflictions with the candidates. The president told her story about a car accident that she was in. She said the other person hit her in the back and admitted to the police that she was in the wrong. Then after the fact, the lady’s insurance turned around and filed a claim against her.
Shortly, after she told her story the first candidate arrived. The president and everyone in attendance seemed to really like this candidate because she was conservative and they shared similar views. Her name was Morgan Wyand and her slogan was “Why, Wyand, and Why not?” During her platform Megan thought it was important to mention that she had worked closely with the current president Katie Gurgainus and the state board of governors. Some of the issues she talked about working on were making the student safe ride more available and increasing school spirit. The student safe ride program is designed for students to get discounted fares on cab rides. She was most passionate about school spirit. She pointed out how the chancellor has a ton of grant money and that she uses it on the ambassadors instead of decorating the campus in more teal. She also mentioned how when she visited a school in Texas everything at the school was in the school colors including the dry-erase instruction boards in classrooms. She felt that UNCW students, faculty, and staff would have more spirit if they saw more teal throughout the whole campus. After her platform the meeting officers held a question and answer session. There weren’t many questions asked because Ms. Wyand was very detailed in her platform.
Soon after Ms.Wyand left the next candidate arrived. Her name was Meghan Jelly. Ms. Jelly presented her platform but it was very vague. She mentioned that she had served on SGA for the last three years. She was interested in working on the current parking situation and building more environment friendly academic and housing buildings. Her platform was very short. During her question and answer session I asked if she could be more specific about the issues that concerned her. She still didn’t have much to say. After Ms. Jelly left one member mentioned how she wanted to ask Ms. Jelly about the recent change in her facebook profile. She said that on facebook for a long time Ms. Jelly listed her political view as liberal and then around election time she changed it to moderate. I think if she had addressed that situation, a mini battle would have in sued and there would be more to this story.
After both candidates had spoken and left, the members voiced their opinion on each. It was clear that because of their beliefs many had chosen to agree with Morgan Wyand. In opposition to Meghan the members complained that she was very vague and non specific. After the members voiced their opinions, the meeting was adjourned at 8:03 pm. I can honestly say that my experience went much more different than what I had expected. I didn’t expect everyone to be as open about things as they were and I really didn’t expect them to welcome me in the manner that they did. I thought that maybe some of them would be real snobbish and stuck up, but were absolutely the opposite. At the end of the night, I can say that I really enjoyed my experience. I encourage others to take a chance at unusual situations sometimes because you maybe in shock with the outcome you receive.
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