Last year students didn’t have a choice for ASG Student Services Vice President – there was only one candidate.

This year, there are three.

Regardless of the number of names on the ballot, a student services vice president must have good relationships with students, said Laura Ellis, current student services vice president.

“It’s in the name,” said Ellis, a Weinberg junior. “I don’t care how well you deal with the administration, how great your ideas are. If you can’t deal with students, you should not run for student services vice president.”

On April 10 students will decide between candidates Jada Black, Courtney Brunsfeld and Andy Gustafson.

Black: ‘Comfort Encompasses everything’ With a combination of outside and Associated Student Government experience, Medill sophomore Jada Black said she wants to make students more comfortable by implementing new ideas and improving existing institutions.

Black, who is a member of ASG’s executive committee and a former president of the Residential Hall Association, said her ideas center around revamping Norris University Center and the Lakefill. For example, she wants to reintroduce a Norris bar.

Although the bar could be a place for all students to hang out, she said, strict measures would be taken to ensure that underage students did not drink there. Students would have to present a WildCARD and a state drivers license. Alcohol only would be served to students wearing wristbands.

Black also wants to start a campuswide Perspectives Day to promote discussion about diversity. Members of the Northwestern committee could speak about their experiences with and feelings about diversity in an open-microphone format at a large venue such as Deering Meadow.

“One of the big problems with diversity on campus is that people don’t talk about it,” she said. “I’d really like to get people to have an open discussion.”

Although her platform contains many ideas, she said her experience with student services issues as president of RHA will enable her to enact them all within one year.

“I feel my platform is made up of original and feasible ideas,” Black said. “My experience gives me the know-how to implement them all.”

Brunsfeld: ‘a broader Perspective’

While Black stresses new ideas, Weinberg sophomore Courtney Brunsfeld said she would like to concentrate on improving existing services and making students more aware of them.

“There are so many student services that students don’t know about,” said Brunsfeld, who is president of College Democrats. The online book exchange and online subletting are good examples of this, she said.

Hosting a student services orientation during New Student Week and involving the student services committee in more promotion of events would help solve this problem, she said.

Brunsfeld said she wants to improve shuttle services by adding a rush-hour intercampus shuttle and extending Winter Quarter hours.

She also wants to ensure that confidential HIV testing continues at Searle Student Health Service.

Strengthening relations between students and ASG would also make students more aware of services, she said.

As student services vice president, Brunsfeld said, she would put ASG suggestion boxes at the Norris Main Desk and in the Technological Institute, post the office hours of ASG members and have a table in Norris where students could meet each month with ASG officers.

Brunsfeld said her experience as president of College Democrats will help her get the job done, while the fact she has never been a member of ASG will help her better relate to groups.

“The thing about being the president of a really big A-status group is you gain the same experience an (ASG) officer gains,” she said. “(But) I have a much broader perspective.”

Gustafson: ‘Eliminate the risk’

Weinberg sophomore Andy Gustafson also wants students to feel comfortable voicing their concerns to ASG – and he said he hopes to use their input in enacting a variety of services.

Gustafson, a former treasurer of Bobb Hall and a current Bobb senator, said he would like to increase student parking by letting more students park in the “wide-open” Norris parking lots and making more A-passes, which are currently only available to off-campus students, available to students who live on campus.

Having a shuttle to the Mark II Lounge, a popular bar, would save students money on an expensive cab ride and encourage students not to drive drunk, he said.

A plan for a bar at Norris, while ensuring that underage students do not drink by enacting restrictive measures similar to those taken at the alcohol tailgate Fall Quarter, would also encourage students to drink responsibly, he said.

“It’s getting people to hang out and have fun while eliminating the risk,” Gustafson said.

Gustafson said he also wants to make it easier for students to contact him by having a direct link to the student services vice president from the ASG Web site.

“That could change the face of this position,” he said. “I could get feedback a lot easier and quicker and that would allow me to use it better.”

Gustafson also hopes to lower the cost of ASG’s Spring Break trip.