Endorsing the New Talley Student Union
Robert Andrew "Andy" Walsh recalls the his first vote as a student senator and the controversy surrounding the new Talley Student Center fee referendum.
Interview on 2014-06-06 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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The referendum for Talley was the same election that I got elected in.
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I was a freshman, so the issues on campus I wasn't completely sure of.
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My platform when I ran I think was pretty basic. It was: I'm going to advocate hard for you
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and just know that I'm going to be an open source, I'm going to learn, and the things that come up while we're freshmen or while we're going through the course of the year, I'll work for you and try to learn and also help other freshmen.
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Immediately that vote was critical. It was a critical point on campus. I think it's something that's still talked about today because that referendum that was voted on was very controversial
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and probably in my four years at State it was the most controversial election that we had had here in a really long time, probably going back to the Pirate Captain and those days.
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We had students who voted, a lot of students actually voted, and basically the poll was they thought there was a need for a new student center but they didn't want to pay for it,
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and as a freshman coming onto campus, and not being a part of the student life for that long, I think actually one of my first votes was literally to endorse this new student center even though that's what the referendum said.
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It just made sense to me.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.
