Candidates for Associated Student Government’s academic and student services vice presidential positions debated Tuesday night the importance of Martin Luther King Day, on-campus performance spaces and a campus free of bird droppings.
Academic candidates Ebo Dawson-Andoh, Debkumar Sarkar and Mike Fong disagreed on how to improve CAESAR, how to decrease textbook costs and whether students should have a full day off from classes on MLK Day.
Student services candidates Jada Black, Courtney Brunsfeld and Andy Gustafson agreed on the need to clean bird droppings off of sidewalks and increase student input to the student services committee, but their platforms focused on different issues.
Economics Lecturer Mark Witte, who moderated the debate, introduced the academic candidates by stressing the position’s importance. He noted that the academic committee has been instrumental in adding a pass-fail option, adding pluses and minuses to grades and observing MLK Day.
“In a way, it’s the most important position because that’s what we’re all here for – academics,” Witte said.
The candidates mulled over the future of MLK Day. Fong, a Weinberg freshman, and Sarkar, a McCormick sophomore, both said they wanted to expand MLK Day to a full day off classes, while Dawson-Andoh, a Weinberg sophomore, proposed a half-day off with no classes after noon.
“Dr. King believed in education, so we should honor him by attending our classes,” Dawson-Andoh said. “There won’t be any programming in the morning anyway.”
The need for various additions to CAESAR also sparked debate among candidates. Dawson-Andoh wants to create a subcommittee to implement CAESAR’s degree-auditing system, allowing students to see what classes they need to take in order to graduate. Fong wants students to be able to search for classes by professors’ names and to see their finals schedules online. Sarkar also wants students to be able to view their finals schedules and to be warned while registering if the schedule would lead to three finals on the same day.
In debating how to counter rising textbook costs, Sarkar said he wants to work with Norris Center Bookstore officials to make more used books available. Dawson-Andoh said he wants to improve the textbook reserve system at the library, while Fong said he wants to increase publicity for ASG’s online textbook reserve.
The candidates in the student services debate agreed upon many issues, but differed over how large their campaign promises should be.
Brunsfeld, a Weinberg sophomore, said her opponents’ platforms were too expansive and would limit their ability to deal with smaller problems that could arise during the year.
Black, whose platform includes an amphitheater on the Lakefill, a bar in Norris University Center and a caller identification system on campus phones, said ASG candidates should try to introduce big-ticket items to the campus.
“We need to have original ideas to get students excited about ASG,” said Black, a Medill sophomore. “We need to look beyond shallow band-aid issues to solve long-standing problems.”
But candidates agreed on the need to increase student input to the student services committee. And they agreed that bird droppings on the sidewalk created an eyesore that needed to be removed.
“We could put bird feeders by the Lakefill, so the feces would just fill the water,” said Gustafson, a Weinberg sophomore. “It’s important to keep the campus clean and beautiful.”
