Amid a crowd of close friends with T-shirts reading “You’re a Graduating Senior, Why do you Care?” Jared Christiansen could only guess if the next phone call was the one he was waiting for.
When the phone rang at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, all of the guessing was over.
Minnesota Student Association presidential candidate Christiansen, an Institute of Technology senior, and his running mate Matt Hass’s hopes to become the two men who would deconstruct MSA from within the organization were dashed.
“I’m not surprised,” said Hass, a College of Biological Science junior, “considering some of the campaigning tactics by other parties.”
Christiansen and Hass, who campaigned on the platform to dissolve MSA, finished third in the election, collecting 575 of the 3,066 votes cast by University undergraduates.
“I guess the student body isn’t ready to accept what the MSA really is,” Hass said.
Despite what they described as a large amount of support, Christiansen was not able to overcome fellow presidential candidate Ben Bowman.
“The people who support us are generally the ones who don’t vote,” Christiansen said. “We offered a different view, while everyone else ran on the same thing that has been said for years.”
But the defeat suffered by the duo will not stop them from attempting to rid University students of their government.
“Our number-one goal now is to get a referendum to get rid of MSA on next year’s ballot,” Hass said. “Now we want to put the fate of MSA in the hands of the students.”
Christiansen couldn’t care less about what happens in the association before election day next year:
“(MSA) isn’t going to do anything. By the end of fall quarter, they’ll realize that they don’t have any power.”