The University Board of Elections sponsored a debate for candidates running for Judiciary College representatives and Honor College representatives in the Newcomb Theater last night before polls opened today.
Speaking before a sparse crowd, candidates outlined their plans and made cases as to why they are best suited for the jobs.
While five students are running for the three UJC College representative positions, only Grayson Lambert, second-year co-chair of the issues subcommittee, and Merriam Mikhail, second-year counselor for the executive committee, were in attendance.
Third-year UJC Judge Connor Sullivan, third-year UJC Judge Dean de la Peña and second-year UJC educator John Thornton were not present for the debate.
Lambert and Mikhail both stressed the importance of reinforcing "professionalism" within the UJC as well as outreach to the University community.
"We're never going to improve ... if we don't hold ourselves to a higher standard," Lambert said.
Mikhail said professionalism is something "we need to take seriously,"adding that the "committee can do better to reach out to U.Va."
Seven candidates, all of whom were in attendance for the debate, are running for the three College representative positions on the Honor Committee.
The candidates are third-year Senior Support Officer Catherine Anne Daley, third-year Counsel Brian O'Neill, third-year Senior Educator Support Officer Allie Moore, third-year Pre-trial Coordinator Daniel Lautzenheiser, third-year Investigations Coordinator Linda Liu, second-year Douglas Lewis, executive secretary of the Diversity Advisory Board, and third-year Senior Advisor Ben Cooper.
Major topics of the discussion included diversity, education, transparency, relevancy and efficiency of the Committee.
Many candidates expressed concern that Honor is viewed as a predominantly white organization.
"This needs to be changed immediately," Cooper said.
Lewis added that diversity "must be fixed inside and outside of Honor."
Lautzenheiser emphasized that "spotlighting," the singling out of particular groups of people in terms of reporting Honor violations, must be stopped.
All of the candidates were in consensus that transparency is a problem that Honor will have to face next year.
"There is a lack of general understanding of honor by the U.Va. community," Liu said, suggesting the solution of forming discussion groups aimed at educating students.
The lack of student education contributes to Honor's biggest problem -- that the system is no longer relevant to students, Moore said.
"Students have to feel ownership of the system," Daley said.
Liu emphasized that Honor should not be seen as just a punitive system.
According to O'Neill, Honor is good at identifying problems such as relevancy, but "not good at fixing issues. Inaction won't work."
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