About 100 students came to the Baker Ballroom to hear each executive candidate running for Student Senate during Ohio University’s Board of Elections second debate of the election season.
The candidates debated rape culture, diversity and Restart’s proposed “participatory budget model” among other topics.
The candidates for president are Zainab Kandeh, of Action; Jordan Ballinger, of ONE; and Megan Marzec, of Restart.
The vice presidential candidates are Alex George, of ONE, and Caitlyn McDaniel, of Restart. Action does not have a vice president candidate.
The candidates for treasurer are Rose Troyer, of Action; Carter Phillips, of ONE; and Jolana Watson, of Restart.
The budget model proposed by Restart would give members of student organizations a choice in deciding how much funding each of OU’s student organizations would receive.
Phillips criticized the plan and said student organizations would only look out for their own interests and not the interest of others. He added that it would create the “Hunger Games of funding.”
On the subject of rape culture, Kandeh called for a task force to be formed that would involve student, faculty, staff and Athens residents.
Kandeh’s comments were followed by Troyer, who said students should receive training and education on rape culture at orientation.
“It’s a culture problem and in order to change that, we have to reach out to every student on the campus when they get here,” Troyer said.
All candidates for each ticket agreed OU needs to become a more diverse place as a whole and more minorities should be represented in senate’s body.
“We need to address diversity on all demographics,” Watson said. “We need to make sure we have diversity not just of race, but of sexual orientation and also socio-economic class.”
The debate lasted a little more than an hour. Each ticket was given three minutes to respond to questions asked by the moderator, Jareed Robinson, a senior studying business who previously moderated the other Board of Elections debate. Following the responses of all three tickets, the candidates were given the chance to respond.
@MariaDeVito13
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