Student body treasurer is responsible for writing and managing Student Government's budget and overseeing a staff of comptrollers. It's a position that requires a lot financial know-how and analytical aptitude.
Regardless of the fact that he's running unopposed, The Daily Gamecock endorses Ian Shannon, a second-year global supply chain and finance student, and current head of the senate finance committee.
As we’ve said in the past, it is never a good situation to have only one candidate running for an executive position, and Shannon agrees. In his endorsement interview with The Daily Gamecock, he acknowledged that having one candidate on the ballot isn't fair to the students — they're pretty much stuck with him for better or for worse.
Nevertheless, we feel confident in his ability to carry out the duties of the treasurer and wholeheartedly endorse him for that role.
Shannon’s self-styled approach to the treasurer’s position will be to create a consistent series of small improvements to fit the needs of his office, rather than large, sweeping changes. Moreover, as the chair of the senate finance committee, he has the necessary experience with the financial minutiae of SG that every competent treasurer needs. He more or less writes the financial allocation requests used to fund student groups that the senate votes on each week, a task that costs him a significant amount of extra time and effort.
He's comfortable with the finance codes and seems to have genuine enthusiasm for perusing Excel spreadsheets, which can be tough to come by but an almost essential trait for this position.
Ideally, we'd would like to have other candidates running alongside Shannon to offer other options for student body treasurer, but we believe that he's certainly well-suited for the job.