Anna Morton wore a blazer and heels, dressed executively for the role she envisions herself assuming, speaking to preserving and improving the body she calls home.
Her opponent, Jacob Chaffin, appeared more relaxed in a purple button-down, leaning in to the microphone as he outlined his plan to reengineer Ohio University’s Student Senate into a grassroots organizing force.
Their contradictory goals — of short-term steps vs. long-term planning — were themes throughout the second debate in this year’s Student Senate elections between the executive candidates of VOICE and FUSS.
“We believe Student Senate can do more,” said Matt Farmer, FUSS’ candidate for president. “We need to be pushing on social justice issues. We need to be pushing to make sure tuition hikes don’t happen.”
Chaffin, FUSS’ candidate for vice president, repeatedly stressed that his ticket is focused on setting the tone to demand the administration take student input into account when making financial decisions.
“We just have a lot more supporters (than FUSS),” said Nick Southall, VOICE’s candidate for president. “Students will be comfortable coming to us, we will be comfortable coming to them and we will advocate for things other than (affordability).”
Southall maintains that his ticket’s experience within Senate and the fact that his ticket has 34 students running for key positions will yield results.
“I’m not about focusing on our members. We need to be going out to students,” Chaffin said. “I’m 100 percent for student power in any way possible … and I don’t think anyone else has that experience, and I really do.”
Morton, VOICE’s candidate for vice president, believes her role is to keep Senate functioning efficiently on a day-to-day basis. She also stated that affordability is not her ticket’s top priority, with another primary focus placed on programming.
“The role of the vice president is to be a constructive advocate for Student Senate members,” Morton said. “I would never try to run for an executive position that I kind of had experience with … As vice president, you need to understand how Senate works.”
The candidates running for Senate treasurer both believed an overhaul of the Senate Appropriations Commission is necessary next year but disagreed over what aspects needed change.
Austin LaForest, VOICE’s candidate for treasurer, hopes to streamline SAC’s rules and funding system to help student organizations take more interest in OU’s primary student programming funding body.
“It seems that our opponents simply have complaints,” LaForest said. “We have tangible plans that will produce real change on this campus.”
Rebekah Rittenberg, FUSS’s candidate for treasurer, cited a need to promote SAC’s usefulness and visibility.
“SAC is a great opportunity for student orgs, but they don’t know how to take advantage of it because they don’t understand the rules,” Rittenberg said.
At the end of the debate, an experienced internal senate ticket with short-term, tangible goals was contrasted with an outside ticket that wants to affect real change in OU’s student governing body.
“We need to raise a fuss because students don’t care about Student Senate,” Farmer said. “Lets break down the walls (between students and senate.) Let’s raise a fuss.”
dd195710@ohiou.edu
