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Three vie for president's seat
 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Dan Johnson and Brad Carlson, candidates for president and vice president respectively, aim to create equality in funding.
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 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Dan Martinez and Gordie Loewen, candidates for president and vice president respectively, want a plan of incorporation.
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 Media Credit: Christine Johnson/Editor Brett Sween and Desiree Westby, candidates for president and vice president respectively, aim for open communication.
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On Wednesday and Thursday, SCSU students will have a chance to vote for Student Government president and vice president. The three candidates offer a wide variety of experience, agendas and issues to choose from.
The president and vice president candidates respectively are Dan Johnson and Brad Carlson, Dan Martinez and Gordie Loewen, and Brett Sween and Desiree Westby.
Johnson and Carlson are running under the newly formed Greek ticket. The Greek Party represents a coalition of Greek houses, ROTC, Crew Team, Delta Sigma Pi, College Republicans and College Libertarians. Along with nominating Johnson for president, the party has nominated 12 of the 21 candidates for Senate.
Johnson said the Greek Party has three main goals. The first being to create equality in funding for student organizations, based on membership, and prestige to the school. The second goal is to promote a free press on campus, which Johnson feels is threatened by the changes to the student constitution. Finally, Johnson outlined a plan to hire a lawyer to do pro bono work for the student body.
Johnson, a senior political science major, held positions in Student Government in previous years and ran for president last year.
Carlson, a sophomore political science major, is a newcomer to Student Government. He has been on the executive board of his fraternity for the past year and was involved in ROTC for two years.
Martinez and Loewen have said that they are running an issue-oriented, student-first campaign. Among the goals outlined by Martinez are finding a solution to parking, stabilizing tuition and student fee increases, creating a community connection and initiating a plan of incorporation.
Incorporation would mean that students would own a piece of their education as a non-profit organization, thus having greater influence on health, food and housing services.
Both Martinez and Loewen are senators-at-large in Student Government. Martinez is a junior, majoring in Spanish and economics. He has held positions on various Student Government committees.
Loewen is a third-year student, and is the chair of the Student Services Committee, as well as being the campus representative for MSUSA.
Sween and Westby have said that they want to repair the rift between the student body, Student Government, faculty and the administration. Sween described the current relationship between all these groups as adversarial and said his presidency would facilitate changes and open channels for communication between these groups.
Sween and Westby said they will remain firm on the issue of not making any campaign promises that they cannot follow through on. Sween said that he cannot promise what his administration will do because he does not know what the big issues will be next year. His plan is to take the issues as they come and create partnerships with the groups on campus to deal with these issues.
Sween is a senior majoring in accounting and communication studies. He is the college of business senator for Student Government.
Westby is a senior majoring in mass communications and communications studies. She is the public relations chair for Student Government.
On Thursday, the candidates held debates on Atwood Mall. The debates were facilitated by the Election Committee, and the questions came from students and observers.
Among the issues debated were the changes in the student constitution that will also be voted on this week.
"I support most of the changes, except for the part about the (University) Chronicle," Johnson said, referring to the amendment about student media, and the removal of a clause that stated student media managers and editors could not be removed for arbitrary reasons. "Whether the clause was redundant or not, it should be there. There should be no censorship of the student media. If we are elected, we will change it back next year."
Martinez had a different view of the changes.
"I worked on the constitution, and I think it's a good constitution," he said. "I am not for censorship in any way, and that's not what the changes are saying. It's a good document and people should vote for it."
Sween also felt that the changes were appropriate because they cleaned up the document and made it more workable.
"My only objection is to the section about the (University) Chronicle, because we didn't foresee the uproar it would cause," he said. "We took it out so no one could misconstrue the facts. We are for a free press, and our problem was we were remiss in getting the message out about what we were trying to do with the changes. I don't think it really effects the document."
The candidates were also asked to address their views about what should be done concerning the issues of hate crimes and bias that are going on at SCSU.
"This is the touchiest and most sensitive issue any of us will have to deal with," Sween said. "A distinction needs to be made between cultural diversity and cultural competence. We are becoming very culturally diverse (at SCSU), but we still need to work on becoming culturally competent."
Sween said this could be done through openness and education.
Johnson also acknowledged the seriousness of the issue.
"I am not going to pretend to be an expert on the issue, because I'm not," he said. "I think these are issues that the Cultural Diversity Committee will have to work hard to deal with."
Martinez countered by saying that more dramatic steps may need to be taken.
"I am a Mexican-American, a Chicano," he said. "I know what it's like to face bigotry and racism. Bias and bigotry are too big to be limited to the Cultural Diversity Committee. We need to recruit and retain more students and faculty of color."
In outlining the goals of his administration, Sween repeated that he did not want to make any promises.
"What we want to do is restore respect and accountability to Student Government," he said. "We have a bad rep, and that needs to end. We also need to build stronger relationships between the factions on campus."
Johnson repeated the Greek Party's goals of providing equality in funding for student organizations, promoting a free press, hiring a lawyer to represent the student body and addressing the parking issue.
"We want to use the Greek Party to get rid of the adversarial nature of the Senate," Johnson said.
Martinez reiterated his goals of stabilizing student fees and tuition, and initiating student incorporation.
"You will own your own education," he said.
Martinez also said that the parking issues and bias problems could not be solved overnight, but that he and Loewen would work on them.
All the candidates were satisfied with the debate results. Although Johnson felt that some of the questions may have been geared to him, he was pleased.
"There weren't enough people here as we would have liked, but we got our message out," he said. "We stuck to our guns."
Martinez was also a little disappointed with the turnout, but said that the debates went pretty well.
"We just hope people listen to our platform, which we plan to stick to," he said. "This is an issue-based campaign, and we are not catering to any specific interests. Even if people aren't going to vote for me, I hope they come out to vote."
Sween echoed the sentiments that the debates went well, despite low attendance.
"I think all the candidates did a good job of spelling out what they represent and the leadership styles they represent," he said. "I think we all have equally-divided and diverse constituencies, so it will depend on who shows up at the polls."
After the presidential candidates debated, the vice presidential candidates took the platform, in large part, repeating the goals, strategies and issues that their running mates had dealt with.
The vice president debates focused more on the logistics of Student Government, as candidates were asked specific questions about the committees and boards they would be involved with as vice president.
The proceedings soured a bit when Loewen and Carlson began taking shots at each other over such issues as Lobby Day, Carlson's ROTC experience versus Loewen's Student Government experience, and Carlson's involvement in the Greek Party, which both Westby and Loewen objected to because it created an adversarial relationship within Student Government, and in Westby's words, "brings exclusivity and narrows the concerns of the Student Government."
Carlson said that his role as an outsider to Student Government would give him a fresh perspective, while Loewen cited his extensive experience in Student Government as a bonus. Westby sought to trump both of them by citing various organizations she had been involved in, which went beyond ROTC or Student Government.
Danielle Grabowski, vice president of Student Government, and chair of the Election Committee, said she hopes to get at least 10 to 15 percent of the student body out to the polls.
"We had about 11 percent last year, and we would like to surpass that," she said.
Jake Zisla can be reached at: [email protected]
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