My name is Michael Andrews and I am president of the Benton Engineering Council, the umbrella organization that serves as the official point of contact for all engineering involvement. This statement was also created with the help of Amanda Scotto, BEC vice president of communications, and countless other leaders within BEC.
The Benton Engineering Council would like to officially note that no student organization or individual violated any BEC constitutional guidelines or bylaws. Furthermore, BEC officially condemns any resolution of the submitted party violation that would result in not counting engineering votes, regardless of political party choice.
To summarize the events that took place before the violation: The issue began on Feb. 16 when a Students Party candidate submitted an email to the Institute of Industrial Engineers for distribution.
According to BEC guidelines, any organization of BEC waives its right to endorse a political party.
The email sent out, however, contained only facts and information and featured no IIE endorsement.
The IIE student leaders have access to the Industrial and Systems Engineering listserv, which is the channel on which the email was sent.
Some students were not pleased with the political information, which is when this issue came to my attention.
I contacted both parties (both candidates and leaders) and sent them the contact information of the presidents and treasurers of all BEC societies.
I had both groups of candidates submit a platform blurb to me for approval.
I waited until both blurbs were submitted before approving and authorizing the distribution.
The Students Party team decided to contact all societies, whereas the Unite Party team did not decide to follow through with the blurb.
We are not exactly sure why IIE was contacted in the first place or exactly how many organizations actually distributed the Students Party message to their listservs.
The approval and distribution of these blurbs occurred over the weekend, at the same time that the Unite Party submitted a party violation against the ISE email.
I was not notified about this violation at all and did not learn about it until Tuesday night.
BEC understands that much of the ruling lies with Student Government, but we wanted to weigh in on the issue to defend our fellow engineers.
This campaign, the College of Engineering slated the best candidates that it has ever seen for both parties, and I have noticed an increased interest in SG affairs over the last few weeks.
Engineering has always been isolated from Student Government in the past, and I am excited that we are contributing to the political discussion; however, I want to ensure that our classmates aren’t more disengaged from SG than before.
If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact us at any time. Also, please stop by our Engineers Week 2012 events that have been occurring every day since Feb. 15 and will end on Feb. 27.
Go Gator Engineering!
Michael Andrews and Amanda Scotto
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Senior
and Chemical Engineering Junior
