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Three tickets formally discuss their visions for the SGA

The three tickets for 2017 Student Government Association President sat down for debate of eight questions from the moderators – questions chosen from student submissions via an online form – followed by nine questions from audience members. Christian Chiu and Olivia Schreiber served as the moderators of the three tickets: Tommy Daly and Cat Oesterle, Colin Aitken and David Roghanian, and Darby DeStefano and Cris Collado. At the end of the debate, Schreiber briefly mentioned the constitutional amendments that are also on the ballot and encouraged the audience to vote wisely.chosen from questions submitted through an online form from the student body.

First, Schreiber introduced each candidate by name, year, and major. Then, each ticket had the chance to give opening statements:

Daly spoke of the importance of voting for this election and his intent to foster the interests of the Stevens community, citing his experiences as Chairman on the Committee of Student Interests, working with new organizations, and co-chairing the Budgeting Committee. Oesterle spoke of her experience as a senator and how her role as head of SGA’s Public Relations Committee allowed her to understand how Vice President should help committee heads. Daly concluded stating that they have been inspired by the power of the SGA to represent everyone – athletes, students with disabilities, minorities, and LGBT students – and that the education, opinions, and experiences of all students should be of the utmost importance to all officers of the SGA.

DeStefano prepared a statement with her running-mate Collado. She hoped to convey their three different views of what the SGA might become – maintaining the status quo, becoming more structured and business-like, or becoming an attitude of students first working with the community and administration to be an agent of change. DeStefano stated that the SGA is a position of service, not privilege. She said that they must collaborate, operate transparently, and encourage opinions of others.

She said that the president and vice president positions are about being. “Let us together enter a new era where the leadership is not concerned with creating a legacy but establishing strong Stevens traditions.”

Aitken said his ticket would like to acknowledge disagreement and many conflicting opinions – within the student body, the country, everywhere – and they’re extraordinarily important. “What we want to do is a give a voice to every student at Stevens.” The Aitken-Roghanian ticket would like to open discussion and use 0pinions to empower the students. “If we all agreed on everything, we wouldn’t be here tonight,” stated Aitken. He stated that they want to create a way for you everyone to effectively communicate to representatives and SGA officials.

The first question from the moderators was for either presidential or vice president candidates: “How have you already brought positive change to campus?” Each ticket had two minutes to respond.

Daly stated that he spent the past year specifically on bringing positive change to campus, “a lot of what I have done is to create a senses of community within the Stevens population.” He created the Electronics and Gaming subcommittee, the subcommittee council, is currently working on a religious subcommittee, and created the new organization process. Oesterle said she helped with public relations in the SGA, being an approachable face and helped with two recent bills.
Collado stated, “I like to think that I got involved very early on on campus and doing so really allowed me to have perspectives in different places.” He stated his involvement with SHPE, LAA, and ResLife. “Doing so I realized where campus is lacking,” said Collado. He cited his experience creating community on his floor as an RA. “A big passion of mine is service,” he mentioned his service trip and his fraternity being recognized for service.

Aitken stated, “I think the most relevant experience in which I was able to enact positive change on campus was through the Committee on Club Sports Improvement” (CCSI, ironically). Aitken was able to gather and categorize feedback, then formulate report with solutions to department. “This format enabled club sports to make change quite significantly in the past year … and I’m looking to bring that kind of structure and know how in the presidential position.” Roghanian added that he was drum major of his high school marching band and president of his National Honor Society, and that he came to Stevens and started Quackappella and has served as Music Director since in addition to helping create a jazz quartet on campus.

The second question was directed towards presidential candidates: “What do you think students are most discontent with, and what would be your first step in resolving this?”

DeStefano stated that there are a few major points. The first being academics and a lack of understanding between students and their professors and TAs. She stated specific paths to improvement such as the Computer Science Department’s CA’s and improving the tutoring program. Secondly, DeStefano stated that we lack tradition. She criticized the university’s mentality of always trying to innovate something new and establish a legacy on campus, but we need tradition. Lastly, DeStefano called for health and wellness, specifically awareness and an open forum for discussions about what motivates us beyond Stevens and academics.

Aitken said that an issue is that students don’t feel their voices are heard or respected. Another main focus of the ticket is a sense of campus pride and spirit. He acknowledge that previous attempts such as R.A.G.E stating “All of these ideas are fantastic ideas and I think we need to give one of them the chance to grow.” He wants to find out what the students want and what will get them excited to be here, be a Stevens student, be a Duck.

Daly agreed that academics is an issue. “We have terrible engagement with TA’s, terrible engagement with our professors.” As part of the Student Advisory Board for the Center for Faulty Engagement and Advancement, he has been looking to create mid-semester surveys. In addition, some of the issue of campus space is frustrating. There is currently no place reserved for only undergraduate students, according to Daly. Daly also agreed on Stevens pride. Daly wants to work with Student Athlete Advisory Committee to create a relationship and have communities supporting one another.

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The next question was directed to vice-presidential candidates: “What do you see as the biggest change that needs to come to the VP Position?”

Roghanian said, “I spoke to Jess who is the current VP, just today, and I think she has done a great job at pushing the VP position towards the way I see it going, but I think there’s more work to get it to its end-state.” He said it’s about goal-setting with committees – it’s about meeting with each committee of the SGA and pushing them to their goals and helping them achieve new things. It’s not just about maintaining each committee, “It’s about pushing their goals forward and making sure each committee independently is moving forward and doing what it needs to do to advance.” This includes being strict with senators, working with the speaker, creating a schedule, and getting students involved.

Oesterle said she’s been lucky enough to serve as Public Relations Committee Head, and lucky enough to know what heads expect from the Vice President. She added, “We currently don’t have the amount of senators we need for each committee.” She stated that the budget committee doesn’t need to be as large as it is. Oesterle believes that organization within the SGA is so important, and she wants to host training for committee heads.
Collado explained that the VP overlooks all committed of the SGA and holds them accountable, but that some senators might feel that the VP role is detached from the senate. He said that it is important to get engaged with the senators as well as heads. “In terms of manpower within the SGA… the SGA looks very internally and expects a lot from different individuals.” Collado said they talk a lot about getting students involved form the community, and he believes that “You don’t have to be a senator to get involved.”

The vice president candidates had a chance to raise their hands and speak during a rebuttal period.

Oesterle pointed out that some committees are internal and not a lot of students have investments in Public Relations or Constitution & Bylaws committees.
Roghanian pointed out that Aitken has been pushing for staffing committees appropriately and that they have made significant progress on that.

Collado said the SGA is of service to the Stevens community and that’s why it’s important to get students to voice opinions. “Although I do think it may be a legitimate concern, we don’t want the perspectives and opinions to be too narrow on the budget committee,” an important counterpoint to trying to decrease the number of senators on the budget committee to put manpower elsewhere.

“How do you envision outreach for planning committees for festivals?”

Daly thinks the new festival guidance committee is the best way to structure and carry out proposals. “I think it would be very valuable to look into the past to see what students cherished – the paint party, Chain Smokers, and Smashmouth.” Oesterle added that we have an issue with funding. She questions whether a festival was worth cutting an absurd amount of money from RSOs. Daly cited some budgeting figures, like 200k of cuts from RSOs and the implications of funding a festival.

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