The founder’s room was packed with members of the Student Government Association, faculty members, and students as they watched the first presidential debate for SGA in six years on Tuesday.
The debate was between computer information systems junior Stephen Bender and finance and economics sophomore Pedro Saltini. Each candidate was asked a series of questions from SGA members and audience members that prompted them to talk about how they would run SGA.
Bender
Bender expressed his desire to create a SGA that would help out the community as well as getting more participation and helping the Registered Student Organizations on campus. He explained an idea that he had to help out new members that join SGA.
“One of the first things I would like to do is to make a new member guide,” Bender said. “They heard about student government, they know that it can be a powerful tool to achieving their, their goals personally or for their RSO. So that’s a project that I would like to do is kind of make a starter guide.”
In addition to the guide, Bender also plans to have several events to help the community including a drive that would collect household items, hygiene products and food. He also plans on having a community cleanup.
An improvement suggested by Bender to start to repair SGA was better communication.
“I think ultimately what can remedy the situation that we found ourselves in is complete and utter just transparency and communication,” Bender said. “That’s definitely something that was lacking previous leadership. I was on the board and I never even was notified with a lot of our legislation that was passed, so I wouldn’t even expect the general members to be aware of that. So I think something actually specific to your question that could be done is almost like a student government newsletter or a report that the board puts out.”
Saltini
Saltini expressed his desire to create a SGA that would seek to hear from everyone on campus. He explained an idea that he had to hear out student’s voices.
“The first thing I would like to do on the presidency is sit in a room just like this one and make a list of all the things that all students want to accomplish,” Saltini said. “And after we see that list after we agree on that list, I want that to be all the achievements I need to complete as a student government president and if you want to say the government was so bad, nobody achieved anything you show me what points on the list we did in the accomplish. We need something that we can measure what results we are having.”
In addition to hearing from the student body, Saltini also wants to help RSO’s across campus achieve their goals by helping them with their needs and getting them funding based on what they would like to do and let them know that they have been heard.
An improvement suggested by Saltini to help start to repair SGA was more community involvement.
“I want [RSOs] to grow as much as they want to,” Saltini said. “And those resources don’t need to be just allocated from the Student Government. Student Government has certain budgets as well. I want to explore the community, so our alumni that are proud to get moved on can come back for us. So our community can step on and they recognize our organization.”
Voting is open until Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. for selecting a new SGA president. The voting poll can be found on SGA’s Bulldog Connect.
News reporter Kourtney Fairchild helped contribute to this story.