Graduate Student Senate's spring ballot will include questions asking students their opinion of Ohio University President Roderick McDavis' administration, but they will be considerably different than ones proposed at last night's meeting.
The group Students for Effective and Accountable Leadership led the initiative to include such questions on Graduate Student Senate and Student Senate's ballots, but senate voted last night to put its own version of the questions on the ballot because senators thought questions presented by SEAL were biased and misleading.
I'm concerned the reactance is built into the questions and they should be reworded
said Karen Greiner, a senator from the Scripps College of Communication.
Maggie O'Toole, SEAL president, presented the proposed questions at the meeting in an effort to give a voice to all students but many senators said the wording of the questions was blatantly biased to SEAL's agenda.
One question of the proposed three reads: Do you feel that the McDavis administration has failed to make university budgeting and financial information available to the greater university community?
Senate president Dominic Barbato said the current wording of the questions would give the administration justification to disregard potentially negative results.
Andrew Pusateri, senator for the College of Education, urged SEAL to adopt different language, later presenting O'Toole with the questions in an alternative yes or no format that he said was less biased.
By using these questions you're allowing your opponent to shoot you
he said.
Senate unanimously voted against the questions appearing on the ballot in current form, agreeing to put their own yes or no version on the document.
O'Toole defended her questions by saying they echoed the words of the student body.
The point in asking these questions is not to try and get rid of President McDavis but to point to higher standards of leadership and alert the administration as to what is going on
she said.
O'Toole agreed to look into changing the wording before she makes a similar presentation at tomorrow's Student Senate meeting. Morgan Allen, Student Senate president, was at last night's meeting and also encouraged O'Toole to change the wording.
17
Archives
Ashley Lutz
