Posted by Rear Admiral Sarah Hemenway (Presidential Candidate) in Questions for the Candidates - 15 Months

Posted by Joe P in Questions for the Candidates - 15 Months
These questions are for everybody.

It was suggested in another question that a candidate may be limited in how effective they could be if they’ve only been back in the club for 15 months after a long hiatus. This inspired me to wonder: “Would we accept this argument about a new person who has ‘only’ been in the club for 15 months?” Then after I thought about it, I realized, I wasn’t really quite sure; that I could kind of see it both ways, and maybe that asking people what they thought would be an interesting way to see how they view the club and the job of President.

1) Do you think a member who joined the club 15 months ago, and was active the entire time, would have the ability to understand the club well enough to be an effective President? If yes, why? If no, why not?

2) Same question as 1, except replace “President” with “Vice President.” Is your answer any different? Why or why not?

I will probably ask follow-up questions based upon people’s answers.

Joe

STF has a very rich history that can be difficult to grasp in just 15 months in the club; I still feel like I’m playing catch up on what’s happened in the last decade and I was active and involved in the process that wrote many of the foundational documents used today. It’s not just about reading the documents and understanding the rules; the why is truly important in understanding the club’s history and the current club culture. That said, I don’t believe that rules out a dedicated, enthusiastic person from doing a fantastic job as President or Vice President. In both cases, the choice of the rest of the team becomes key.

The first time I ran for President, I chose a Vice President who hadn’t been particularly involved in club government nor had he been President before. Looking back at it now, this was a stupid move. When I ran the second time, I chose a former President as my Vice President instead. I had been in the club a lot longer than 15 months at that point, but his support and guidance throughout my first term was invaluable. When it came around to my third term, I chose to flip the dynamic and ran with a Vice President who was a new member. My hope there was that the position would provide insight and mentorship to prepare a new person to jump into the role in the future.

This is all a long way of saying that, the best characteristic a less experienced Executive-interested member can have is an understanding of his or her limitations in that role. I’ve been around a lot longer than 15 months and I still find myself reaching out to other members on a daily basis to find out what happened to lead to a particular rule, often from several people to make sure I’m getting a balanced perspective. This is key to being able to move forward while acknowledging what got us to where we are today.

• Sarah

I have a couple of follow ups for you as well.

1) Just clarify a minor detail of your story for me. You said your first VP candidate choice the very first time you ran (which is not the first time you won, yes?) was a poor choice, and that he had never been “particularly involved” in government before. Exactly how involved or not involved was he? Like, if you remember, what was on his “Outer Space Job Resume”?

2) I do think, implicit to both answers to this question so far, is the idea that, some types of experience are better than others. Even though you’ve argued that, experience can be substituted for self-awareness regarding ones limitations, I think some forms of experience are better than others and certainly a candidate should have some before running, even if they’re a really wise person who knows their own limitations very well.

Let’s hypothetically say you had to pick someone who had only been in the club for 16 months (rounding up to 2 presidential terms here) today to be your running mate. What experience do you think they ought to have to be most effective in that role which would make them maximally effective in the role? Do you think it is possible for someone to develop useful experience in that time, and if so, what would be the most useful experience for them to have?

Joe