Hello to all Magisters! I am pleased to see such a crowded field for the election of our next Provost. It is a good sign of the renewed activity of our legislature, especially compared to the previous election that delivered myself to office. I have enjoyed my time as Provost, and would like to ask the Magisterium to re-elect me.
This campaign thread may be shorter than those of some of the other candidates. I introduced myself to the Magisterium in my last campaign thread, along with some of my ideas. I would like to go through some of my accomplishments and identify opportunities to further improve next term.
Over the past few months, we have admitted a good number of new legislators that have helped enliven discussion here. In the last term, a couple of our new applicants joined after I suggested they consider involvement in regional government. I would like to keep this up our next legislative sitting. Reaching out to new players who join TEP’s Discord is an easy way to raise awareness of what we do here in the Magisterium.
I have been pinging Magisters when a bill needs a second to progress to vote. It’s been suggested elsewhere that pings when a bill is introduced would also be useful – I agree with this. While we want to thread the needle between having too many pings and not enough, moving that ping from the moment a bill is motioned to the moment it is introduced may be more valuable – with the caveat of occasionally adding another if a bill may miss its window for seconding.
The recent proposal to add a member to the Conclave caused a bit of a stir, with back-and-forth debates in UTEP. I liked to see this use of the University, though I would like to see similar debate take place in the Magisterium itself. I may like to introduce a bit of “devil’s advocacy” towards bills to identify weaknesses in their structure and strengthen their arguments.
Thank you for listening to a few of my ideas. I am happy to take questions! Again, I am pleased to see the number of people throwing their hat into the ring for a chance at the Provost’s chair. I can definitely say that, win or lose, the Magisterium has improved over the past couple months and that it will improve further in the future, regardless of who wins.