Transcript: Student Association hopefuls Ryan Golden, Kailee Vick sit down with The Daily Orange Editorial Board
Editor’s note: The Daily Orange Editorial Board interviewed the three sets of presidential and vice presidential candidates running for the Student Association’s 63rd session. In an effort to provide transparency in the editorial board’s endorsement decision, The D.O. has published the transcript of each interview. The following interview has been edited for clarity.
The Daily Orange Editorial Board: So, to start, what do you believe are the biggest issues facing student life at Syracuse University and how do you plan to address them?
Kailee Vick: I think first and foremost, the DPS review and that’s something we really emphasized.
Ryan Golden: I think that bringing that together and looking at it more big picture. And so there are a lot of people on this campus, students of color, students of any marginalized identity who feel like this isn’t a shared campus, that they don’t have a space for them and their community on campus and that no one’s out there looking to create that, um, student organizations having to argue constantly about getting just general spaces on campus to hold events, feeling like they’re constantly being shut down or told that, you know, it has to wait or no one working with them to support what they want and support them. Being a part of this campus is a big issue is that works through several issues like the DPS review, the sexual assault on campus with survivors not being supported, the student association not being transparent and following not following the rules that we’ve set out, things of that nature.
The D.O. Editorial Board: I’ll just follow up. You brought up transparency. Could you go into specifics?
R.G: I doubt that anyone here who hasn’t heard of Cuse Can! the fact that we were did the student associations rolling out almost a quarter of a million dollars in a project that involved only three people and that doesn’t follow the rules that we’ve set out for student organizations. I’ve been a part of the conversation since November about trying to keep the group that was involved, transparent and our voices were not heard in that case. Myself and Quincy Nolan were in the room when that happened and we protested throughout the entire throughout every meeting discussing Cuse Can! the of queer voices, the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability in that room.
The D.O. Editorial Board: What experiences have you both had that would help you in leading SA?
K.V: I’m currently an assembly representative in SA as well as the director of DPS relations. So I’ve had the chance to work with a lot of administrators specifically in my director position. I think that really lends to the vice presidential position and also some of the things we’re looking to work on like the DPS review, like sexual assault reform. As far as being an assembly rep, I have a really good idea of how exactly SA works, which being the only internal vice presidential candidate I think gives me a really big advantage.
R.G: And for me, I spend two years in SA but being president and vice president of SA’s about a lot more than just being in SA. It’s also about how you use your role in SA to connect campus. And so since last year when I’ve worked on initiatives like divestment, trying to get the university to divest from private presence, whether it be that or trying to get better representation within the university senate or the Ackerman assault and writing that resolution. Throughout each of those initiatives. I focused on working with RSO leaders and other campus leaders who would have a stake in this and each and each time I emailed and persistently email leaders of campus organizations trying to get their support and their input on these issues so that I could have a broader coalition of support and a broader uh, and which would have a bigger impact than just having SA members names on it, making sure that this isn’t just some of the SA focuses on, but also focusing on what does the campus feel is necessary. Beyond that, like Kailee, I’ve worked with administrators for two years now working on Callisto reporting specifically with title nine and the council’s office working on ASL and financial holds with the curriculum committee and the College of Arts and Sciences Committee, their curriculum concerning ASL and specifically the, you send financial holds committee that I sit on. And also just being involved in advocating a change in policy and advocating against with the university wants campaign is focused on making sure that the university doesn’t get to just deny us. And then we walk away with nothing. Students have real concerns on this campus and they deserve leadership that isn’t just going to back down at the first sign of a fight.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And what are some areas that you believe need to be improved in SA and how would you address them?
R.G: I think it absolutely boils down to transparency. Like we were talking about earlier, making sure students know what’s actually going on. No, you know exactly how rollovers, dealt with, know how policies are formed. I don’t, something that we encountered when visiting our associates that students didn’t even really know when our meetings were. You see the D.O. headlines, but nobody really knows. And I think that also translates to our transparency and our communication with administration. Uh, something recently was with the DPS review. We were asked, you know, what do you want to see from this review? And you know, I’ve been advocating for it with the chief and I sent him the resolution we passed three, four weeks ago. He had never seen that. So, I think it really boils down to actually following up, actually talking to administration. Actually talking to students about what we’re doing so that students, the campus actually knows what we’re doing and getting student input. One of the promises we made whenever we talk with RSOs is that a cabinet that we choose, we don’t want it to be informed by just us and the BDM chair. We want to inform by campus leaders, when we start performing, if we were to win, when we start forming a cabinet, we’d want input from campus leaders about what do you want to see in your cabinet. This past time around we saw the campus leaders were not involved in any way, shape or form and that that needs to stop. You know, we’re not, SA’s not the only passionate organization on this campus and SA’s, not the only organization that wants to see change and wants to be a part of that change and involved in campus organizations and asking them honestly and taking that input in and taking account for it is asking them, what do you want to see? What was lacking last year and what needs to happen this year when it comes to cultural organizations. Involving them in areas of community engagement, diversity affairs, student life, everything they need to be involved as well as any RSO that wants to give their names.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And what would you do? You mentioned the rollover fund. What would you do with the Rollover fund next year?
R.G: So for me specifically to Stacy Omosa talked about this because it’s something that we talked about together. It was the issue of I think that rollover shouldn’t be used on big expenditure items to give to University Union University Union every year request $1.8 million or roughly somewhere around that and we give him close to 900,000 and the fact that every year we ended up doling out another roughly quarter of $1 million on another big project that wasn’t accounted for. It doesn’t make much sense, especially when there are student organizations that aren’t getting a lot of funding. One thing that we’ve talked about is that we want it, we want to take roughly 60 to 80 percent of rollover fund and give it back to the finance part to disperse among student organizations so that they can have more funding. And if they can do more to put on their programs. I sat on the finance board for about a month during our budget process before I got chair for academic affairs, which then I had to resign from the post on finance board, but when I was sitting in there, a lot of the conversation wasn’t about, well they didn’t do this and they didn’t do that, so we have to deny them. It was, we only have so much money and it shouldn’t be that way. When you’re the student association having roughly, you know, 350, $400,000 sitting in an account somewhere that they have sole autonomy over. I do think that there needs to be an executive account between the three positions of president, vice president and comptroller, it still needs to be more transparent, but I don’t think it needs to be as large as it is as it is, especially with the demand for better campus programming put on by student orgs.
The D.O. Editorial Board: How would you approach your relationship with administrators to advocate on behalf of students?
K.V: So I think there’s a certain diplomacy that’s necessitated with interactions with administration. But I think something that we’ve really emphasized in our campaign and I think sets us apart really, is that we’ve said that we’re activist leaders period. And that we’re willing to go back and demand these things and push for them and not just kind of do whatever administration wants. We’re not led by administration, were voted in by students. You know, we don’t, we don’t cater to administrations. We catered to students.
R.G: And my role I’ve been in, I’ve been in more than enough meetings with administration where I’ve brought up an idea such as Callisto. Callisto is being pushed back against the university. They told me that it was that we couldn’t do it because of indemnification and internet security. So I reached out to every college that has it. And I said, what was your experience with both of these? And every college said, we don’t know why your universities caring about indemnification and Internet security is amazing. It’s impossible to hack into this program. In fact, one college lost their key to the program and they had to call Callisto and took them a month to get their key back. Things like that are important. And I got, it got to the point where the university wasn’t responding. So I saw Kent on the quad. I just said, hey, we got to talk. And I sat down with him on a bench in front of Hendricks and said, so what’s going on here? And he was surprisingly more transparent than the council’s office. And when it comes to things like academics, I’ve been in meetings where people have floated the idea of getting rid of work credit for students such as internships, not getting credit anymore. And I said that that was a really terrible idea because the point of a university isn’t to make money, or at least it shouldn’t be the point of it should be to support students and to certify that they know what they’re doing. And a lot of administrators in that room, I forgot about that. I think that this administration right now, it needs to have a student association leadership that’s willing to go into those meetings and to remind them that they have to be here for students.
The D.O. Editorial Board: What administrators do you guys typically speak to? Would assume all Maldonado, Callisto.
K.V: Yes. Typically, may I speak to Maldonado mostly, I’m starting to get in contact with Callisto. That’s a work in progress with DPS.
R.G: When it comes to Callisto I’m speaking a lot with Abby Perer, she’s in the counsel’s office and when it comes to ASL, it’s Kira Reed other people on the curriculum committee, Gerry Greenberg, people who operate within the different curricular committees. It will always depend on what exactly we’re trying to push for.
K.V: Yep. I’m currently also working on the first year experience initiative where we’re trying to, in SA, reform how that looks. And so I’m speaking to administrators on that level as well.
R.G: Yeah. Um, recently with summer start being canceled out of the blue. I was able to reach out to Amanda Nicholson and I made a point of saying that whatever work group you have, students need to have an ability to be a part of that work group. And she assured me that there was, and she gave me a way to get students on that committee. That’s one thing that we’re currently working through is getting more students on that committee.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And can you describe this SU administration in three words?
R.G: Well prepared. They oftentimes are like, don’t come into a meeting without having an answer. Um, I would say.
K.V: I would say a word I would use is misrepresentative of the student body. Don’t think there’s enough diverse representation in administration.
R.G: Yeah. And I would say probably say disconnected. A lot of times you’d like to act in meetings as if they have their ear to the ground and they know what’s going on. But it’s clear in a lot of meetings that they don’t know how a lot of their decisions are affecting students.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And what do you urge the administration to allocate Invest Syracuse funds to specific programs on campus?
R.G: Yes, they should be trying to keep funding for POSSE scholarship specifically gets brought up at the debate that in several programs that help marginalized students are getting cut all the while we’re building an inside pool, an indoor pool next to ESF’s campus. And that doesn’t make any sense, especially when you have students who were also on food stamps if they were putting all these costs on students. And at the same time we’re trying to afford luxuries, and I think that that has to change. And specifically POSSE scholarships because I have a lot of student, I will, I have residents who have been a part of that program. I have friends who’ve been a part of that program and it’s an incredibly beneficial one. And the fact that a student and an administration that talks about diversity is cutting these programs. It just, I said at the debate, and I’d say it again, the university of seemingly found a way to find a space for students of color on their brochures but not on their campus. And that has to change.
The D.O. Editorial Board: So you’d redirect it more towards programming than physical amenities or things along those lines. That’s a broad concept.
K.V: Yeah, I think other things we’ve talked about or accessibility for disabled students, um, being able to have accessible buildings, those kinds of things. So I think, but something we’ve also talked about with recent advances allocating funds towards those programs that are now getting cut.
R.G: Yeah. Being an RA in front hall, I’ve seen pretty terrible accessibility problems that Flint has to get to either wing where you would live, you have to go downstairs, which makes no sense, especially when someone mentioned that you could go through the back, but even the bag has stairs to get to. So there doesn’t seem to be much sense in the university accessibility policies. So she went, I had a friend who was on the accessibility review, the audit, and they haven’t heard anything lately about plans to make buildings accessible is an RA I’ve talked with Terra Peckskamp and she said, we do know what we need to do. We just haven’t done it yet. And I think it’s time to do it.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Did you want to have, because I’m, I’m unfamiliar with the specifics, but would you want SA to be involved or at least briefed on the audit?
R.G: Um, yeah. I want not just on the audit, but plans after you did complete an audit. A lot of it’s, we’ve, we, uh, students can see that there’s an accessible buildings. What’s your plan after that? It’s one thing is same with the DPS for it’s one thing to review your practices. It’s another to implement a plan to change them. And the university has conducted their audit. Now it’s time to talk about what comes next. You know, these buildings aren’t accessible and the student association and other student Orgs, she’d be involved in that discussion about what happens after he got it.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Do you think that DPS should commit to a review of its policies? And if so, what do you think that the average you should entail?
K.V: So I can talk a little bit about this because I’ve been a little lot of meetings this week about this. Um, so I don’t think DPS should be reviewing itself. I think there should be a third party reviewer, um, something like the American Civil Liberties Union, something that specifically talks about the bias related policies and practices that could be happening in DPS. I think DPS already makes the argument that it gets reviewed and in fact they made it to me last week or they get accredited by, IACLEA, which is a campus law enforcement, uh, accreditation agency. And so I think that’s what they’re hiding behind right now. And so that’s, I don’t think DPS should be reviewing itself. I think it really entails a third party coming in and investigating the bias related policies.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Were you satisfied with SU’s Greek life review and why or why not?
R.G: I wasn’t and I made it clear I think I, I think I did an interview considering concerning this cause I also did propose legislation in SA but I wasn’t satisfied because it, there wasn’t much of a plan of action for what we do afterwards and it didn’t seem to be looking at important topics and it didn’t seem to focus on what students are finding troubling that they talked about it and they asked students, they did put out a survey but the survey was skewed towards Greek life. This was brought up at the beginning of the year when, but rob, he came to the training for Ras and it was brought up several times. The survey itself is whiskey. The university throughout its process had no vested interest in really changing Greek culture and there’s a lot of good about Greek life culture. There is good philanthropy that goes on, there’s good support for local communities and there’s a lot of comradery. But there’s also a lot of issues with culture around sexual assault. There’s issues with culture around hazing that need to change and the university has to put the best foot forward. And if they don’t, then the student associations should be pressuring them publicly to do that.
The D.O. Editorial Board: This is actually, that was I guess two of the more specific points I guess you could say in their review, and I’ll just read it directly. “Although hazing did not seem to dominate the conversation with the affiliated students, there were some underlying concerns shared by them. Some examples included sleep deprivation, extreme exertion/exercise and verbal and emotional abuse.” Do you believe SU releases enough information about hazing incidents? If not, what would you do to address that?
R.G: I think that SU doesn’t release enough information specifically regarding allegations concerning hazing. Because if you’re going to be joining a fraternity or sorority, you’d like to know if they’re accused of hazing. And right now you don’t know that there are several people who I’ve met who’ve dropped mid process because of hazing or people who felt uncomfortable dropping because of the stigma that would come from dropping out of rush. I’ve had residents who’ve come back at three o’clock, four o’clock, in the morning and left at eight o’clock for no reason. And they’re not allowed to say anything to me. I think that the secrecy that goes on in Greek life is incredibly troubling and the universities only is only supporting it by not releasing information.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Do you believe SU has healed from Theta Tau’s expulsion? Why or why not?
K.V: No, I think we’re still seeing that after, well I don’t think Theta Tau was an isolated incident and it even happened before I came onto campus, but I don’t think it’s an isolated incident that is totally separate from the campus culture we have today. And that’s why I don’t think we’ve healed from it is because we have microaggressions. We have incidents following that still represent that same mindset and campus culture.
R.G: I also think the programs are brought into it in the aftermath of it were crap. I mean I was a facilitator for SEM 100 and that was one of the big things that we were talking about. This is going to help us with racism and this is going to help us with, you know, trying to educate people. We barely talked about it and it was a book that was a good book but wasn’t used at all the classes we were afraid to make students uncomfortable with talking about. So we didn’t do it and we’ve worked in for some reason the university was comfortable. So the first meeting, the first class, these freshman have been on campus for like a month and the first class during an activity we were supposed to ask them at any of you been affected by sexual assault? That was incredibly, that was ignorant to ask. SEM 100 was brought, was brought up as a topic that they wanted to do, it was brought up as a program that was meant to combat these issues of racism and stigma and issues of discrimination on campus. But it went about it and entirely terrible way. And then afterwards they patted themselves on the back. I was in the university Senate meeting where they showed us data that even a statistics professor said that’s a terrible way to present data. All that does is hide the true, the true issues of the program and a survey.
The D.O. Editorial Board: The survey?
R.G: Yeah, the results of how students and then the original data that they gave out at the meeting, it didn’t tell you the questions. It only gives you the topic area. It didn’t tell you really how many students just give like a general average and it didn’t show like any like comments that were made by students in the app after it been done. It was a very poorly, if the statistics were represented in a very bad way. I have a big issue with the way that this university is trying to hold themselves accountable, trying to brush things under the rug.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Specifically relating to SEM 100. What’d you want to say to become more involved in how that program is? Because I’m also unfamiliar with that.
K.V: Yep. I want to say it’s been working with the university related to that. Like um, so the real answer is yes and no, it hasn’t. I’ve been heading the initiative where we have a committee where we talk about how we wanted to basically change SEM 100. So what kind of happened was we had a few discussions, we piled together some recommendations. We went to a couple of meetings where we were told like, no, this wasn’t formed because of Theta Tau. The ideas were actually in the works before. And then also the recommendations we already had theirs. They’re saying we’re already, we’re already implementing those for next year and now, uh, so we did give those to Jessie Santillan and um, he basically said, okay, I’ll take these into consideration. That essentially is the role that SA has had. And now the university senate, there’s going to be a proposal at the university Senate for a new FYE experience. So that is, that is pretty much the extent of how SA is involved. And I think the involvement can be much, much higher because there isn’t enough student input on curriculum for someone hundred. How these questions like Ryan was talking about our approach, there’s not enough input. There was zero input, zero student input on the book that was chosen for this next school year. Those things should be discussed with students, with student leaders, with uh, you know, any student that wants to be involved in that. So I think there should be more involved.
R.G: And the university’s transparency has been lacking. Kailee just said they said, well this wasn’t done because of Theta Tau. I was told how they rushed through the process because they felt like they had to get something out because of Theta Tau, they may have been talking about it but it wasn’t expected to be done as quickly and it was ramped up because of Theta Tau. Um, so they may claim that they may be able to have documentation discussing some sort of a shared reading program. But this, the rollout and the rush that was put in was because of Theta Tau. The program that we now have is due to that.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And then if elected, how do you plan to represent students whose experiences you can’t relate to? Whether that’s with regards to gender, sexuality, race, financial status and ability.
K.V: So this is something we’ve been talking a lot about. Um, we, the two of us, and I think this goes for every campaign or not representative of every single identity on this campus. And I think it’s important to recognize that one and then encourage students from other identities and we want a diverse cabinet and we want informed decisions for that diverse cabinet. We want to talk to RSO leaders about two student leaders on campus, but what they would like to see from our cabinet, things like that. Getting more involvement in SA, more diverse involvement in SA.
R.G: Yeah. I mean also when we advocate, it doesn’t have to be just SA. When we have conversations, it shouldn’t just be SA, right? It should be any RSO leader who has a stake in the, in the, in the conversation, which in all honesty is everyone. Anyone who wants to be in that conversation should be in it and everyone deserves a seat at the table. Kailee and I can’t represent everyone, but we can certainly offer ourselves as a resource to anyone who needs it and wants it. Making sure that any RSO leader and making sure that anything we do is informed by not just us or SA, but by the campus, by campus leaders. They are just as passionate and just as willing to get involved as anyone. It’s just a matter of different titles. And SA has had this belief that we’re the only ones who can do this and it really makes it hard when then we screw up because we never asked anyone else for their input. Bringing everyone together, we want to make a good campus together. I want to make it a shared campus. It’s not just going to be SA in that process and we need to get over that. We need to get over the idea that it’s just us. We need to involve other campus leaders and like can said, we want a diverse cabinet. This cabinet this year has been relatively diverse. We’d like to see new involvement. We’ve gotten better involvement from inclusive you and we’d like to see someone from Inclusive U on cabinet if you’d like to see involvement from other campus leaders, campus leaders who have been involved in advocacy and advocacy. We’ve gotten the support of people like Jett Cloud and Taylor Marie because we are big advocates and we want to be more activist association will also get them to support if people like Iris Guzman because we realized that there’s a good mix of activism and diplomacy that has to be balanced with an SA leadership. And right now we’ve gone so far on the diplomacy side that we’ve just started to concede every issue and we need to walk back from that and we need to be become a much more activist association.
The D.O. Editorial Board: And how would you try and balance that? Because it seems like one of the big topics of this is just over what the organization stands for or how are you going to operate?
R.G: Do I wrote the constitution last year so I know its abilities and to know how, and I know this association has chosen to exercise them. When I wrote the divestment resolution, I came back over the summer and I said the university is not willing to work with us on this. And I said I would like a lot of money to run ad campaigns or can the university to do this and to an extent shaming them. We were not allowed in any meetings. No one was discussing it. The university wasn’t even entertaining it cause they, they control the conversation. They were able to just say it’s not done. It’s not, we’re not doing it and it’s over and the university shouldn’t be able to shut down any conversation they don’t like. And when I requested the money, I was told after the meeting that last, not really what we do. Well you can, you just don’t end the debate on Monday night to an extent focused on this. When we talked about leadership versus emotion and the mix of the two, these are important issues that affect every student on campus. And it would be, it would be shortsighted to think that you’re not going to be able to have that. You shouldn’t be using your emotions when trying to advocate. If this is affecting you in such a way, you shouldn’t be asked to set aside your emotions. And I think that the student association has to be willing to go into these meetings and say we’re willing to negotiate, but we’re also not willing to just concede. If you try to push us around, we are going to fight back. We’re going to do it publicly. We’re going to condemn what you do and we’re going to keep the conversation alive.
K.V: I think to add to that, if you’re a leader and you’re a leader at the expense of passion than I don’t think you’re really a leader.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Just jumping off that then, what are some of the issues, um, at least in your mind right now that you would not concede over?
R.G: DPS Review. The sexual assault reform that we want to get. We need a new reporting system that allows anonymous reporting and allow survivors to control the information and control the flow of it and the university should not be able to touch that information without their consent. I think that another issue that we really want to focus on, like we said, it’s transparency and that transparency concerning association as being transparent with the student body over our spending and over our advocacy, but also the university’s transparency. SummerStart was canceled without one student voice and that’s an issue. I was a chair for academic affairs and I wasn’t out to, I had no, no, no one told me that this was even on the table. And that’s a problem if they’re going, if they want students support, they need and in the room and like we’ve said, accessibility, right? We want a plan in place by the end of next year, if not before the end of next year to make these buildings more accessible. And it needs to be something that we can do, not just, you know, a letter well wishes that you know, we like this idea and used to be a plan of action.
K.V: Yeah, and I think something also we’ve talked about is better inclusion and support for international students. We do have an international population on this campus and I don’t think the university necessarily recognizes it appropriately. So we have a lot of international students in places like Sky Hall. That’s a huge hub and it’s a terrible facility. It’s falling apart. And so that’s something we’ve definitely talked about having better work opportunities for international students. That’s something else we really want to advocate for.
R.G: A lot of them have been pigeonholed into food services and that just perpetuates stereotypes amongst students here on campus and making sure that they have the ability to be more than just someone working in food services and to work in areas that they may want to work in and working for. The academic departments working in residence halls are right now, they’re strictly work study, working with the university to rearrange different programs and to create new policies that would allow international students to take to get these jobs. Would help you have, would help create better access for international students and we help increase their opportunities on campus.
The D.O. Editorial Board: What have Kyle and Ghufran done well in the past year and why?
K.V: Something we talked about is the use of funds to directly benefit students with services such as a free STI testing, things of that nature.
R.G: Like the Uber and Lyft. And we want to expand the STI testing. Um, you might have to cut this year total. We had about a month of it. We want to double that to two months, one in the fall, one in the spring. Um, and then while that’s going on, you want to have consistent conversations with the university concerning the health clinic and cost for the health clinic for instance. Um, if you’re getting an STI test and you don’t have the campus insurance cause you can’t afford it or for any other reason though, it’s 50 bucks a pop to get the STI testing. You get one free HIV test, but everything else is 50 bucks. And if you don’t have the health insurance because you can’t afford it, then you’re probably not going to do it for $300 in STI testing and there shouldn’t be the case along with getting your prescriptions filled at the health clinic. And once again, if your insurance doesn’t cover it, you’re on the hook for big, for a huge cost, which is why I want to have to fill mine at a Walgreen’s. I can’t fill it here cause they don’t accept it. It costs lot to be healthy on this campus and the university has done nothing to try to curb that cost. It’s been SA this year has increased STI testing. Um, and I think that we need to increase those conversations. Kyle and Ghufran did a great job when they brought that up and they made it a point to get more STI testing on campus. What do you think has not worked well with Ghufran and Kyle’s, yeah.
The D.O. Editorial Board: What do you think did not work well with the previous SA administration? What would you like to improve?
K.V: Some things specifically about we talked about was transparency. Especially with recent events like Cuse Can! Definitely, it would be our goal to include more people in the conversation. It would also be our goal not to spend almost a quarter of a million dollars ill advisedly.
R.G: And I think that when it comes to transparency, it’s not just about the acts that were brought, but it said every student work there we’ve talked to has looked at the rules that they have to follow up concerning cost per student concerning with the event has to be where it’s held, who’s coming and then they look at us and it’s way over the cost per student. I think it’s like $240 per student where a student works or a quarter of that you can only spend a sixth 60 bucks per student and then we knew nothing. The campus knew nothing. Student association and Finance Board knew nothing before they were asked to support it. I think that it also gave him a really unfair advantage to the university union in this planning that the University Union, you’ve got to plan an event outside of the parameters that other student orgs had to follow and all the while it’s hurting other student orgs, like the Resident Hall Association and the African Student Union who are holding diversity related events on that same day and now they’re going to have diminished to turn out because people are going to be preparing to go to Cuse Can!
The D.O. Editorial Board: You touched on this a little bit before, but could you name three specific projects that you would pursue to improve the physical accessibility on campus?
R.G: So in terms of residents’ halls and academic buildings, we have to start making sure that every student can enter an access to buildings equally. And that means that when it comes to Flint Hall and Sky Halls, you know you should be able to go into those buildings, period. You’re paying for them. You should be able to enter them and be able to utilize them. It also would mean trying to make sure that we have more accessible bathrooms. So when it comes to making sure that bathrooms are not harming their becoming, how do I put this for instance, or bathrooms in Flint hall, the ones where students get the ones that are for students or for residents, I’ll say, um, they’re more accessible, but the ones downstairs and you’re like the gym and the junction or not, it’s hard to fit any kind of apparatus into those stalls because they’re so tightly bound. There’s no way for a student, for instance, aren’t handicapped bathrooms in those, in those bathrooms downstairs. And that can be something that we can work on changing it, but it wouldn’t be a huge, but it would go a long way to making sure that students in those buildings have those opportunities. And then in terms of, not just residence halls, but also things like Hendricks chapel not being accessible and it’s not accessible based on disability, but it’s not accessible based on religion. Working with the chaplain, the Muslim chaplain who’s discussed the fact that Muslim students don’t really have a place to pray in the main chapel and they’re working on taking out the first few pews, but it’s going to happen over the summer and making sure the SA is involved in that project and making sure that we’re involved in the discussion and making sure that it still happens. Because this was brought up at the beginning of the year and I believe Dean Konkol wanted it to happen at the end of last year and something didn’t click. Making sure the SA’s involved in that project and making sure that the Muslim student association as well as involved in that project, would be a big priority for us.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Um, what do you believe sets you apart from the other candidates?
K.V: I think our willingness and our prioritization of being able to push against the administration. I think, you know, in the past few years with SA administration, what we’ve had is people who are willing to kind of just go with what administration says. And I think that’s something we’ve definitely set ourselves against. And we’ve said that we’re willing to work against administration to benefit the students. You know, there is a diplomacy like Ryan said, but we’re willing to fight for the students.
R.G: And every other candidate has great priorities and had great ideas. You know, I, I think that when it comes to our differences, it’s that my Kailee said it’s great to have ideas, but if you’re not going to pursue them after the first sign of pushback, then they’re just going to stay on paper. And we want them to go from being on paper to being reactive reality. We want them to be something that we’re not thinking about in the abstract because these don’t affect students in an abstract way. They affect them in a very real way. And I believe that the next student association leadership needs to be able to say, students feel uncomfortable on this campus. Students don’t feel like they have a space and they have everyone to change this campus as much as anyone else. So why are they being shut out of conversations?
K.V: And it’s a little cliché, but our campaign slogan is a new direction and I think that’s what we represent. A new direction for the power that SA can hold.
R.G: And just to add, like we’ve said multiple times, this isn’t just going to be us. I haven’t heard much conversation about how other campaigns would prioritize the inclusion of other student boards. We want that to be our big priority. We can make a better campus but we can do, it can only be done if we’re doing it together. SA’s not going to be the only crew and that to be emphasized at student voices don’t just live in SA. They live in the Caribbean student association. They live in the disability students, student union and they live in color collective. They live in these different groups and it would be a shame to set them aside and think that we can do it all on our own.
The D.O. Editorial Board: How do you plan on doing that?
R.G: Any conversation we have, if we’re having a conversation about accessibility and we reach out to disability student union, if we’re having a conversation about queer voices, we reach out to color collective and we reach out to pride union. If we’re having a conversation about students who are international, what do you reach out to any organization that is meant to represent different international students, whether it be the African student union, whether it be, the Japanese student association, whether it be the Filipino student association with any of those organizations that are international. If we’re having that conversation, it has to include everyone.
K.V: And I think something else that we talked about in conversation with RSO leaders is having sustained communication and not just this one time talk, just having sustained interaction with these leaders on multiple initiatives. So yeah, that’s also important.
R.G: Whenever we talk about the things that we want to do, it’s not just going to be us it’s not just gonna be me and Kailee or our chiefs of staff or our cabinet that has to be other campus leaders. Passion lives within their organizations and they are just as passionate as we are and adding their voices only helps us and the campus as a whole.
The D.O. Editorial Board: What are your plans if you’re not elected?
K.V: Honestly, to continue fighting for what we can in SA. I mean, I don’t, I don’t think the fact that we don’t win means that we lose that passion when we lose the drive to fight for the things we’re talking about, like the DPS review or sexual assault reform. I think, you know, we still want to take an active part in SA next year even if we don’t win in advocating for those things, for students.
R.G: I’ll be applying for cabinet. Just because I lose this election doesn’t mean there’s no space for the things that I want to do. And I think that every campaign wants the same thing. They want a better campus, they want a more inclusive campus. And I think that it wouldn’t help to then shy away from trying to help do that. And being a part of this association has been something I’ve been doing for two years. I’ve lost my fair share of elections. It didn’t stop me from wanting to do more. And hopefully if I were given a cabinet position I would continue the advocacy and make sure that just because we lose doesn’t mean that the issues have to stop being talked about.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Do you have any plans for providing documentation of what happens in SA? I’m looking at your websites, meeting minutes and agendas right now and the last ones available are from February.
R.G: Yeah. So the issue there specifically is that we’ve had three recorders this year who do the minutes we had the second one was there for a week until she decides she didn’t, or not decided for some, there was miscommunication and she couldn’t do, she couldn’t be there. So specifically to those, those documents aren’t up because of clerical errors that occur in transitions. But I think that also the minutes are not as, they don’t go into as much that you would like to see. You get, you get the topic and then you get your vote count. If there was a vote. There’s really not much about what was raised. If there’s not much about what was discussed. And I feel like one thing we’ve been doing over the past two years is a live feed, a live stream on Facebook, which gets roughly like three to four people each time. But it’s also helpful if we had like a transcript, if we had something that could go to and you go off of it since this is what was said, this was advocated for, this is why we were talking about it so that we could provide people who wanted, you know, if The D.O. wanted better quotes if they wanted to have longer, you know, um, list of if they wanted to read about what happened or read about was sent specifically word for word that would be important to do.
The D.O. Editorial Board: How are you an effective president, vice President team?
R.G: We chose each other because we knew what we wanted to do. We think that, I want to say we, but yeah, we’ve been working together for the past year. Yeah. I think I even interviewed Kailee because I was on the board of elections at the time. There was my job to interview most of the new candidates. We know when the other person needs help. We also know how to delegate and stay on things. So as an effective vice president and president pair, I think that that’s going to come down to our ability to con. We have pretty good communication within the two of us. We’ve seen that throughout the election where we’ve been able to delegate to each other, I can do this, you can do this. Let’s put up and and make sure that it gets done rather than thinking that it has to be all or none of us.
K.V: Yeah, no, I would agree with all of that. And I think for the most part we’re passionate about the same things. You know, we really, when we set to talk about our campaign platforms and specific issues, we want to talk to them, talk about, it was very easy to come to an agreement on what those were. And I think that also speaks to the fact that we’ve had a lot of working experience together in the past year. We’ve written a lot of resolutions together. We’ve cosign a lot of pills. So I think, you know, we just, we’re all on the same page and we did choose each other year. Correct.
The D.O. Editorial Board: Anyone have any other follow up questions? Great. Thank you so much.
K.V: Thank you.
R.G: Thank you for having us.