Candidates on the FACE and RSVP tickets have very different visions for Ohio University Student Senate, and both say their platforms will better appeal to students.
The FACE platform focuses on accountability, diversity and fiscal responsibility, said FACE presidential candidate Matthew Wallace. RSVP’s platform concentrates on academic experience, student support services, affordability, safety and improving Student Senate, said presidential candidate Kyle Triplett.
“I feel that student programming is crucial at Ohio University,” Triplett said.
This month’s B.o.B concert is an example of student programming Triplett said he would like to repeat next year.
“We’re looking to institute a type of concert series,” he said, adding he hopes to use an initial $100,000 investment to finance the first concert, which would ideally recover the money to be used for another concert the following year.
Triplett said RSVP would like to make Baker University Center a more attractive space for students.
“One thing we would like to see is a kind of sports bar type of venue,” he said. “… It would really make a lot of revenue … especially if you can sell alcohol.”
RSVP’s vice presidential candidate, Roger Jones, said the Baker plans are not far-fetched.
“It’s gonna happen,” he said.
Jones is the chairman of the Baker Advisory Board, which he said has been working with Sujit Chemburkar, the executive director of Ohio University Event Services, to develop a plan to convert Latitude 39 into a site that would attract more students.
Many details of the plan still have not been worked out, Jones said, including a way to keep the bottom floor of Baker open without opening the rest of the building.
Two of FACE’s biggest accountability-related goals are opening Budget Planning Council meetings and securing voting rights for student trustees, Wallace said.
Student trustees should have voting rights because students’ views need more representation on the Board of Trustees, Wallace said. Students should also be able to have a better grasp of how their money is spent, he added.
Triplett, who is a current student trustee, opposes voting rights for student trustees because they have an obligation to both the university and student body, a conflict that is too difficult to reconcile.
BPC meetings are not on the RSVP platform because students are not interested, Triplett said.
Each party says it has tried not to make promises it will not keep.
“(FACE) makes a lot of promises that I don’t know how they’re going to implement,” Jones said. “If you ask us, we can tell you how we’re going to implement each step (of our platform).”
Wallace said last year’s SOUND party campaigned on pledges of Baker improvement but didn’t follow through.
“I want to pick my battles,” he said, adding that FACE has prepared resolutions to go with every point of its platform that it will pass right away if its candidates win.
“We’re all set to hit the ground running,” Wallace said. “They seem to be set on hitting the ground and getting a concert here.”
One of the battles FACE has picked is eliminating AlcoholEdu, a program students must complete prior to their first quarter at OU.
“I’d like to see freshmen not have to spend time doing something that serves little purpose other than information gathering,” he said. “It’s what the students want.”
Triplett said AlcoholEdu is necessary, despite its unpopularity.
“I think that in hindsight, everybody who’s taken it remembers it,” he said, adding that it’s also useful for OU to obtain information about how experienced the incoming freshman class is with alcohol.
FACE’s fiscal responsibility plans will save OU about $12,000, Wallace said. The majority of that would come from the full-tuition scholarship traditionally given to the Student Senate president, which Wallace would return if elected, he said.
Senate would also eliminate paid secretary positions and excess money from its budget, he said.
“We really want to save the school money,” Wallace said. “Obviously, RSVP wants to spend $100,000.”
The two tickets will have the chance to discuss their differences at the first Student Senate debate, hosted by the Board of Elections at 6 tonight in 235 Walter Hall.
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