News > March 27, 2008

By Alex Osteen, Kell Wilson | Opinion editor, Editor-in-chief

With only a little more then one month remaining in the spring semester, most students are hard at work studying for tests or writing term papers. Yet for nine university students, their energy is focused on a more challenging and time-consuming task.

They only have one week, from March 25-April1, to convince the student body that they are the best person for their respectable jobs before the election take place on WIN all day April 1.

While some of the students have held or tried for executive SG positions before, most are running for their first time, and this makes the race an interesting one for all involved.

Though their experience may range, most candidates shared similar ideas and concerns on their platform.

Of the three presidential candidates, all expressed a concern about students feeling like they are uniformed and kept in the dark about university plans.

This matter especially came to light after the administration announced several changes to the campus over a month ago which included the conversion of faculty apartments to student housing, the rise in both tuition and parking fees and the possible instillation of Starbucks in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.

Sophomore Jermyn Davis, one of the three SG presidential candidates, said that the administration needs to be told and understand what is important to the students and the reasons why people come to the university in the first place.

“A lot of us came here because of university’s) small size and the personal teacher relationship as well,” Davis said.

“It’s important for us to start communicating those certain things.”

Davis also highlighted several other issues he’d wish to tackle if he was elected president.

One thing he would like to work on is expanding student parking, especially for commuter students. He wants to open up Lot E behind the library for commuter parking as well as get rid of 24-hour parking for faculty and staff and stick with the more common 9 a.m.-5 p.m. faculty parking times. He also wishes to implement a more flexible drop date where students can drop a class after the usual allowed period if they never received a grade in the class before the regular deadline.Davis also wishes to make SG more available to students by starting a blog that he’d update with information and ideas that take place at the general assembly so that students can have more then just the minutes to reference.

Junior Sarah Walker, who has been SG treasurer for the past two years, is also vying for the presidency.

Her platform is based on three steps: enjoying the university now, career preparation and alumni relations.

In order to improve these areas, Walker plans on focusing on increasing the idea of Pro Humanitate around campus by increasing funding for Volunteer Service Corps as well as integrating VSC and the idea of service into the freshman orientation assemblies more than it currently is.

Another big point she emphasized was to have different career days for a wide variety of specific majors. “I’ve heard numerous complains from a variety of majors that they go to the careers fair and the only things offered are banks or nothing that’s really appealing to them.” Walker said. She wants to use faculty and alumni connections to bring in big name companies for other majors besides business and economics. She also hit on the idea of a Senior Day for the campus, something brought up by other candidates as well.

The event would take place during the end of the school year and although it would have several attractions for students, the main idea behind it is to pay to bring in a big-name speaker – something that should happen at commencement but that the administration failing in recently.

Ross Williford, the third candidate for president, is a junior as well. He is the current Speaker of the House and chair of an SG committee on sustainability. Williford, like Walker, also mentioned an interest in working with other members of Student Government to develop a Senior Day to be initiated as early as this graduation season.

In addition, he expressed his continuing desire to establish a concrete sustainability plan on campus that he said would make the university look good in the eyes of prospective students and college ranking officials and save money at the same time.

He also admitted that other smaller initiatives like parking, the recreation center and details with the Pit, are important too. Finally, he said that he would advocate openness and honesty within the administration, especially in lieu of students’ anxiety of the administration’s recent announcement of changes. “We don’t want to see another debacle like faculty apartments … ultimately the quality of our faculty affects the quality of the student body as a whole,” Williford said. Openness in communication by SG itself is something that he said was necessary to repair as well, as it remains a constant issue for his organization year-to-year.

The position of Speaker of the House has two candidates, Matt Triplett and Alex Vaccaro, both juniors. Matt Triplett is running his campaign on the idea of “giving Student Government back to students” and wants to take its focus away from pet projects and put it back on things students want to get done.

According to Triplett, choosing committee chairs, a central role of Speaker, should be done based on legislators’ motivation to actively seek students’ opinions.

Also, he said that the current constituent email system doesn’t work and that, “(SG) need to find a real way to do this and the burden is on us.” He also proposed inviting student organization leaders to GA meetings, use of the OGB and direct contact with students. Triplett said that he wanted to work on addressing the idea of a Senior Day.

Alex Vaccaro is the current Chief of Staff and has cochaired the Public Relations committee.

In terms of picking committee leaders, she said that finding dedicated individuals who can motivate other committee members and establish consistency in leadership is important. To Vaccaro, the big campus changes, including tuition and student body size increases, as well as Campus Grounds and faculty apartment evictions, are the major issues presenting themselves to students today. Football ticket distribution reforms and maintaining Deac Days also were important initiatives to Vaccaro. When it comes to aiding communication between SG and the general student body and crossing the “disconnect” therein, she said that the PR committee should really take up the initiative to utilize the OGB and establish a penalty system for legislators who do not obey constituent e-mail rules.

“Something I have thought about exploring … is creating a SG listserve that students can voluntarily subscribe to,” she said.

There are two candidates seeking election for the role of SG Treasurer; Celia Thacker, junior, and Saket Munshaw, sophomore. Thacker has served on the Campus Life committee and is currently on the SBAC. She stressed her frustration that in an era of tight student organization budgeting, trustees haven’t given a direct increase in their funding of SBAC to reflect the enrollment increase.

“It really isn’t fair that we don’t have the money to give to these kids and it needs to be addressed and that’s why an increase in funding is imperative,” she said. She went on to mention that the “proof is in the pudding” in the large number of budget allotment appeals by student organizations this year, showing the lack of funds generally. Finally, Thacker explained how she felt that there is a general dearth of understanding by the student body of how the SBAC process works and wants to establish a forum to help explain how to write a budget.

“We actually want to help these groups,” she said.

Munshaw has served on the SBAC committee for the past two years since his freshman year. He similarly said that there is an alarmingly low level of SBAC funding, “It outrages me that we have to cut groups arbitrarily after we’ve made or decisions just to fit into the budget of the university.”

In order to remedy this, Munshaw hopes to have an open discussion with the administration from the beginning of the year.

Also important to him is regaining general SG involvement by the treasurer. In terms of SBAC policy, he has found minute-taking during hearings vital as it helps gauge organizations’ credibility and aids in the appeals process — he also plans on maintaining the requirement of program reports.

The last executive position, secretary, is being competed for by freshman MaryKat Keith and sophomore Luke Britt. Keith has served her first year at the university as a general assembly legislator and a Hoops for Hunger and Appropriations committee member.

She expressed how she feels that other than simply taking minutes for SG, the secretary should take a logistic and organizational role, making sure that things run smoothly.

“Communication between students and trustees is one of my big concerns,” she said. Keith mentioned how the e-mail system needs correction.

Britt is a current PR cochair. He also ran for an executive position last year. Britt said that he felt the role of secretary in SG could and should expand to serve as the voice of the student body.

“The executives do have much more of an ear to members of the administration and that gives them a great opportunity to voice the concerns of the students.”

He mentioned, similar to Vaccaro, that there should be a stricter penalty attached to constituent e-mail regulations as well as more effective fliers and use of the OGB to further fortify the communicative potential of SG. Finally, persistence with administrators after bringing up a topic is an important trait for secretaries and executives in general.

Certainly all the candidates bring unique experiences and ideas to the election table. Students are encouraged to vote for the leaders they feel be most productive in the April 1 elections.