|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Rice Thresher
Phone:
|
by TOM BELANGER THRESHER STAFF The four candidates for Student Association president debated Sunday night in preparation for the SA General Elections. About 40 students came to Farnsworth Pavilion to hear the views of Wiess College sophomore Lindsay Botsford, Lovett College sophomore James Dallal, Hanszen College sophomore Merritt McAlister and Hanszen sophomore Gavin Parks. Moderators Jett McAlister and Mariel Tam, Thresher editors in chief, and KTRU Station Manager Meg Smith gave each candidate two minutes to make an opening statement. Merritt McAlister, the current SA external vice president, explained during her statement that since her freshman year she has been trying to build the Rice she wants to see by involving herself in the SA Senate and helping to set up a support group for "non-heterosexual women." McAlister said she wants to continue her work by becoming SA president and finding new avenues for making Rice a better place. McAlister said she would plan to focus next year on establishing a review committee in the Counseling Center and requiring all senators to attend their college cabinet meetings and report back to the SA. Botsford, the Wiess SA senator and former SA freshman representative, said she has loved Rice from the moment she arrived. Because of this, Botsford said she wanted to become involved in Rice to try and make the place she loved even better. Botsford said communication between the SA and the students is of primary importance and that she hopes to use the office of SA president to get more students involved, communicate senate concerns to the students and, more importantly, to the SA Senate. Botsford's main goals for next year include improving field and equipment conditions for intramural and club sports, as well as making it easier for people to get involved in activities on campus. Dallal told the audience that many of his ideas to improve the senate stem from his experience as opinion editor for the Thresher. "I don't have any significant experience with the SA, but I do have a lot of time logged thinking about important issues dealing with taking care of Rice University, primarily through my experience with the Thresher," he said. He proposed several ideas, including improving the SA as a means to implement change, better relating student opinion to the administration and revising student-related documents such as the SA Constitution and the Code of Student Conduct. Dallal's other ideas include monthly pieces in the Thresher explaining the activities of the SA and the distribution of literature explaining the operations of the senate to all incoming freshmen. Parks, a transfer student from Southern Methodist University and current SA treasurer, explained that although it has good intentions, "the SA doesn't do much of anything." "It's almost a crime to say that the Student Association is representative of the entire student body considering less than 26 percent of the student body voted for the last SA president," Parks said. Parks said he would remedy this by "[changing] the SA so that we can change things around Rice University." The main measures Parks said he hopes to implement are the reinstitution of paper ballots to increase voter turnout and the establishment of a SA historian to keep an extensive record of senate activities. The problem of low voter turnout This issue of voting procedure was also addressed by the other candidates. Botsford explained that the low voter turnout must be put in perspective with voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections. She supported instituting a combination system of paper and online voting, as opposed to the current system of only online voting. She also suggested greater publicity for the elections, asserting that many students do not know how to vote or what to do. Dallal expanded upon the idea of hybrid ballots with the idea of a 48-hour voting station where people could go to vote at "all hours, during the day and night." He also said voting stations should be placed in the individual colleges, further increasing election publicity. McAlister said the real problem with voting is that students do not feel that they are part of the SA. "It's all about communication and building a community out of the SA," she said. SA/college relations Another important issue that the future SA president will have to address is the senate's relationship with the college presidents and senators. "Most people's chief allegiance on this campus is to their college, and so they tend to regard the SA as a sort of ... hegemony that is trying to manipulate all of the colleges' particular interests," Dallal said. Dallal said he believes that strengthening individual relationships between the SA president and the college presidents, as well as giving the college presidents more power in the senate, will aid in solving the problem. Parks agreed that college presidents should have a stronger role in the association, saying that if they are "demoted to just being communicators, the likelihood of them coming to the meetings will greatly decrease." Parks also believes that the SA senators should have stronger roles in the organization. McAlister pointed out that the role of the SA and college governments differ in that each organization addresses different issues. She suggested more of a "communal" than "dictatorial" process for running the SA. Increasing minority involvement Audience member and Hanszen College freshman Anthony Covington asked the candidates how they would work to involve more minorities in the SA. Botsford said the best way to solve the problem of a lack of diversity would be to simply reach out to more people. Dallal said he believes the issue of a lack of diversity in the SA is related to other, larger issues rather than problems dealing directly with the SA. However, he believes that much of the work to improve the problem will have to happen on the individual level. Parks admitted that he doesn't know how to solve the problem, but said that he will "try [his] darndest" to find a solution. McAlister said more people should realize that the SA requires involvement on an individual level. She also suggested freshman classes on diversity, asserting that an attitude of discrimination begins when students first enter the university. Constitutional reform One topic of discussion in the SA Executive Committee this year was constitutional reform. McAlister suggested relying on individual feedback and a senate committee. Parks also agreed that a committee would have to be established to help make the constitutional revisions democratic, even though an effective senate committee would be difficult to organize. Dallal suggested a procedure dividing the constitution into a core section and bylaws. The bylaws could be changed by a vote of the SA Senate, but a campus-wide vote would have to be held for the core of the constitution to be changed. Botsford said that most other solutions were impractical and a senate vote would most likely be representative of the student body in this case. Differentiating the candidates During the debate, the candidates were asked how they could be differentiated from their three opponents. "I'm not afraid to tell it like it is or tell it how I feel," Parks said. "I'm more a quiet leader," McAlister said. "I believe in working with people and making everyone believe in working with people." "There are things that I want to change and, yet, at the same time, I know what avenues I have to use to change them," Botsford said. "I'm able to work within the old system to change it." "I haven't yet been involved in the day-to-day activities of the SA, but I have been significantly involved in experiencing many of the important activities that an SA president would have to undertake," Dallal said. SA presidential candidate Merritt McAlister and Thresher Editor in Chief Jett McAlister are not related.
- back -
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of: The Rice Thresher, Rice University MS-524, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA. The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@listserv.rice.edu |
