Weinberg junior Scott Badenoch’s favorite authors are Kurt Vonnegut and poet Philip Larkin, because they flip social norms on their head and make people question things that haven’t been questioned before.
Badenoch, an English major, hopes to do the same thing during his campaign for Associated Student Government president. He said most students don’t care about ASG because the group’s members have resigned themselves to the fact that they can’t impact administrators’ decisions.
“We need to get together and realize that students have a voice, and that voice is ASG,” he said. “I want to be the person people call to solve problems.”
Badenoch said he will change ASG’s image by compiling a list of complaints from student leaders and demanding that administrators give him answers to why the problems haven’t been solved.
“They at least need to tell us why,” he said. “We literally pay their bills. They might run the university, but the students are Northwestern.”
Badenoch is confident that he will be able to get answers from administrators, even though he believes ASG has failed in the past.
“(ASG members) go in there intimidated because they know the administrators hold the stick,” he said. “I hate to make it a battle, but sometimes a little battle is what’s needed to make a change.”
Badenoch said he will contact leaders of student groups, residence halls, Greek organizations and academic groups – “anything with a listserv” – and let them choose which problems he should tackle.
“I have a perfectly clean slate,” he said. “I’m a sponge for other people’s ideas. I want (student leaders) to fill my agenda up, and they’ll have an equal opportunity to fill it.”
He said he hopes that solving each group’s problems will lead to a more unified campus.
“When each group starts getting what they want, it will be a lot easier for them to come together to form one concrete student body,” he said.
Badenoch’s straightforward philosophy is reflected in his unusual method of campaigning. He hasn’t schmoozed in any dining halls, scrawled his name on any sidewalks or slapped any posters on walls around campus. He said he doesn’t want to win because a catchy poster made someone subconsciously remember his name when voting.
“All the signs and chalk is just proof that ASG is not for students, but for the people who are running,” he said. “They’re just a bunch of people who know ASG real well, but they don’t learn that ASG should be for students.”
Badenoch is soon to finish his terms as president of Phi Gamma Delta and Interfraternity Council secretary. He said his experience with the Greek system, which counts about 40 percent of NU’s students as members, has taught him to be loyal to the students he leads.
“I am uncompromisingly loyal to my people, and I am ready to combat the university, no holds barred,” he said.
