AMANDA DEDIE
News Editor
Last Thursday the candidates for Student Association president and vice president got together for a debate — president against president, vice president against vice president. Important questions were asked: how each individual anticipates their role in SA playing out, and what they — as president or vice president — plan on doing for students.
The debate began with Brendan Hoare, the moderator, jumping in with the vice president portion of the debate. Mary Kay Taylor — vice presidential candidate running with Jason Burgos; Holden Bernstein — vice presidential candidate running with Connor Hoffman; and Kelsea Halloran — vice presidential candidate running with Maggie McHugh, were up first.
BH: What do you foresee your role as vice president will be within the administration if elected?
MKT: My role … would be to strengthen that bridge that SA currently has with the students and build upon that … Make sure everyone has a say, and are able to come into the office … and feel like they’re at home.
HB: We really do want to build a presence and want everyone to feel comfortable and come and talk to us during our hours. We want to be as available as possible. While we want people to come to us, I don’t think it’s enough. We want to go to them in an outreach program.
KH: I want students to be really comfortable coming to us with their frustrations and their problems. They shouldn’t feel like we are difficult, we just want what is best for them.
BH: Why do you believe that your running mate is the best candidate for president of the Student Association?
MKT: He’s very approachable. If you have a problem you’re not comfortable talking to an administrator about, he’s very comfortable with the administration. You can talk to him about it and he will try his best to answer your question himself, or go to the administration and ask your question.
HB: Connor Hoffman has extensive knowledge on how the administration really does work. Connor is conservative. He will ask the tough questions that need to be asked.
KH: Maggie is probably one of the most caring people I know. She cares a lot about SA. She knows a lot about SA, and she’s a very hardworking person.
After this line of questioning came the debate between the presidents.
BH: How do you plan on finding the most qualified students to appoint to various positions [within SA] on campus?
CH: I want to find students who have different perspectives. I want to find students from every major on campus. Obviously we have the most qualified candidates, but I want candidates with an outside perspective. We need to include everybody, because we represent everybody.
MM: I think it’s really important that we have more people from across campus at our meetings.
JB: I think finding teams that are committed to improving SA’s communication are the students we should be looking for. We need the kind of individuals that have a unique opinion, but also have an opinion that supports what the association is saying, no matter what topic they’re presenting.
BH: Why do you think that there is a negative stigma about the Student Association?
MM: I think it’s because people think only SA knows anything about SA, and we need to educate our fellow peers and make sure they are comfortable enough to ask us questions.
JB: I think that we should get rid of that stigma. SA is a representative body that is in charge of our clubs and organizations, it’s not a big scary monster.
CH: Communication, communication, communication. I don’t think any student disagrees that SA has a problem with communication.
BH: What sorts of things make SA inaccessible, and what would you do to solve that?
CH: It goes back to communication. I think the general belief of SA is that we have to be more approachable. It’s true, but that’s only half the problem. We need to actively go out amongst the students. We need to be seeing what their problems are.
MM: Communication is key. We need to talk more to underclassmen and classes coming in and show them how friendly we are.
JB: Communication can only go to a certain point. Physically reaching out to groups is probably the key to increasing our involvement and our membership.
After the president side of the debate came questions from the audiences members (AM).
AM: There’s a lack of diversity in SA. What is your response to that, and what do you plan on doing about it?
CH: There is a lack of diversity in SA, and the answer is communication: we have to talk to every possible student, we have to go on social media and we have to include as many people as possible.
MM: We need to go to our groups and find out what they want, and tell them that their voice is heard.
JB: We need to go to the CMA and see what problems that they want us to address with diversity.
AM: What is going to inspire you to go into the office every day and give 110% to those students?
JB: The fact that I would be going into the office everyday to sit down with students and help them solve their problems is very reassuring.
CH: My passion. [I] talk about SA almost every single hour of the day. I want to make sure that everybody has a voice, and that is my passion. That is what is going to keep me in that office until four in the morning if I have to.
MM: Knowing how important it is for things to run smoothly. Each club is important to everyone, and the SA helps for them to run smoothly, and if I have a part in helping with that, that’s what inspires me