Questions and concerns rise over homecoming court selection process

CORRECTION: We incorrectly reported on this story and in an opinion piece published in the October issue of our magazine that student organizations were not properly notified of the changes to the homecoming court nomination process, but we have received official documentation that shows that multiple emails were sent out detailing the changes to the homecoming court nomination process.

Students are encouraged to actively check their student emails and student organizations are encouraged to ensure that all of their emails are up to date. If leadership changes were made within organizations, they should notify Carly Clark by email to ensure that their emails are updated in the system.

In regards to the story posted, Lavin’s email was updated as the new president of Sigma Alpha Iota after the emails were sent to the former president, so she would not have received the initial notifcations about the change in the nomination process herself.

As homecoming week festivities wrapped up last week, students and organizations on campus have voiced their concerns over the validity of the homecoming court and its selection process.

Several organizations were previously thought to either have been unable to nominate members or left in the dark about Nicholls’ new process used to select the 2017 homecoming court. This new process retains some of the steps from last year but now involves nominations being processed by a committee. This committee interviewed selected nominees.

Baptist Collegiate Ministry, Colonel Catholics and Sigma Alpha Iota are a few organizations that were believed to have never been notified about the new process, either by the university or by the committee itself.

Drue Williams, BCM president, and Conan Sherlin, director of BCM, were both left to find out about the nomination process through the court announcement on social media.

“When they saw it on social media, it being announced, they were actually upset because they didn’t get to nominate anyone,” said Williams.

Christina Lavin, president of Sigma Alpha Iota, an international music fraternity for women, was unaware of the new process. Lavin found out when she was nominated by a separate organization on campus. Lavin took over as the president of the organization after the inital emails about the homecoming court nomination process was sent out, and so would not have received information by email that the process had changed.

“The only reason I knew or I had any idea that they could be nominated through organizations was because the current president of the GSA…wanted to nominate me,” said Lavin.

Annie Knight, Colonel Catholics president, did not know about the process until she was interviewed for court. There was no vote presented to organizations about this new process, and Knight said she was, “never notified or asked for input,” as president and would like to have been aware of the process.

This year’s homecoming court is comprised entirely of members of Greek organizations on campus, with all seven males coming from Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE).

Blake LaRose, president of SAE, expressed his support for the new process.

“But this year was a little different because you could self-nominate, and then each organization of course could nominate as many people as they wanted, and then it went to a committee and the committee performed interviews. So from those interviews they selected the court, and then each student on campus got one vote for their king and queen,” said LaRose.

LaRose then said that SAE had been duly notified of the new process as well as the deadline for nominations. The way his chapter was notified, however, is unclear. No official emails were sent by the university regarding the new nomination process for organizations, nor were there any flyers or signs around campus.

LaRose, on the other hand, had different information.

“It was broadcasted through flyers and such throughout campus. Also, the Greek advisor, Tommy Ponson, he does a good job of relaying that type of stuff to each chapter and those things. So, I think it was just word of mouth around campus. Start word of mouth early enough and it’ll of course get to who it needs to get to,” said LaRose.

Both Delta Zeta and Phi Mu, who have representation on court, could not be reached for comment.

It was made known that all student organizations

Voting for the homecoming king and queen has ended, and the results will be announced at the football game versus Abilene Christian at 3 P.M. on Saturday, Oct. 14.