Campus unity, avoiding past mistakes and a switch to digital forms were the focus of the Student Association election candidates Thursday night as they made their sweeps across campus.
‘The SA has failed the past few years in being able to unite the student body,’ said presidential candidate David Belsky, who is serving his second year as executive vice president.
Fellow presidential candidate David Bass, who is currently the vice president for Multicultural Affairs, agrees there is a gap to be bridged between the SA, the students and the student groups. In order to repair this, he wants to institute town hall meetings with the SA executive board so that students can ask questions of their representatives and instill accountability.
Bass described how he would take a hands-on approach to the presidency, instituting monthly meetings with the community presidents ‘to really make sure that community governments are reaching the goals they want to achieve.’
Belsky, who took responsibility for this year’s creation of the Student Group Council (which allows direct dialogue between the SA and student groups), said that through the groundwork he has laid and the relationships he has formed with administrators, he can best ‘accomplish what we need to accomplish.’
Unopposed executive vice president candidate and current SA Rules chair Joe Danko said he would try to prevent situations like the one several student groups found themselves in when their funds were seized after their treasurers did not fill out the proper roll-over forms. He said he would form relationships not just with the president and treasurer of student groups, but the other members as well to ensure that one or two individuals cannot ruin an entire group’s funding.
To make form filing easier for student groups, Danko, as well as financial vice president candidates Alice Liou and Christopher Powell, believes a full transition to the digital age is necessary.
In Liou’s experience, ‘the biggest inefficiency was miscommunication’ between the FVP’s office and student groups. She said, if elected, she would correct it by making herself more available via phone and email contact, expanded office hours and instant messaging.
Powell added that he’s ‘looking to make everything available through an electronic format ‘ and make all of these forms submittable online.’ He feels his two years of experience in the FVP’s office and on the Financial Council gives him superior knowledge of the student groups and their issues.
Ways to alleviate textbook prices were proposed by all three academic vice president candidates.
Julia Fracassa wants a comprehensive list of books for courses to be available to students months before semesters start. Matthew Landau hopes to create a price match system between the University bookstore and Mando Books. Boris Tadchiev, on the other hand, desires a student book exchange, which would cut out the middleman service bookstores provide.
All candidates also promised to address the drop deadline and reading period if elected.
Sandra Dube, who is running unopposed for re-election as vice president for University Programming, cited her increased accountability for the programming budget and the success of the fall concert, which cost no more than $12,000, as reasons to vote for her. She also approved the idea of a community liaison so students could better express whom and what they want brought to campus.
Unopposed to replace Bass as VPMA is Rabeel Patoli, a Hinman SA representative and VPMA liaison. He said he wants to work with the VPUP to bring multicultural programs to campus. Patoli hopes to raise cultural awareness within residential communities and set up meetings with different cultural organizations every week.