The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Student Government (SG) elections for all offices begin online Mar 28 at 12:00 p.m. and end Mar 30 at 9:00 p.m.
Arts & Humanities junior Brittany Sharkey and political science sophomore Cody Willming are the unopposed candidates for president and vice president, respectively.
The Overture sat down with the candidates to find out how this election could effect UTD (and us).
We did not include a candidate biography and platform section because those details are available on the ‘Students United for Progress’ website here.
Does SG have any control over, even in an advisory role, potential cuts to UTD classes, staff or services due to budget cut demands from the state?
BRITTANY
We can’t just march into an office and say ‘this is what you’re going to do’ or ‘this is how you’re going to change.’ What we do is advocate; we tell the administration ‘this is what students want’ and convince them of it. We at least try to meet on some middle ground.
The Student Fee Advisory Committee has five student members; the majority of the voting members on the committee are students. It’s the President (of SG) , vice president and three others appointed by the president. Yes, student government does have some control over the budget but the committee that allocates next years fees has already met. If Cody and I are elected we will be on the committee that decides how student fees are spent for the following year.
So I think the strongest power coming out of SG, for next year – whatever the situation is with the budget – is advocacy.
How do you plan to reach the students who either don’t know SG exists or don’t know what SG offers?
BRITTANY
We will not flyer because we think it targets a minority, the on-campus minority, of students. And students who live on campus get so many flyers as it is that it doesn’t seem like an effective way to advertise.
One of the things we’re really advocating for is an alternative way to advertise. I am a huge advocate of an online bulletin board where students can go to a website and see these flyers listed and searchable by category or event title. If we could promote something like that and get it out to students, maybe spam the student email one time to let everyone know it exists, I think it would reach more students than just flyering.
That is really more of a long term plan. We would have to convince the university to change the current system.
A more immediate plan is to have one student organization per month be the featured visitor during the ‘visitors’ section of an SG meeting. We would approach the president and vice president of a organization and give a brief run-down of the issues presented to us by other students and ask for their input. Then we’d offer them a chance to briefly present issues they may be having during the SG meeting or talk about how they are handling the parking problems and other ‘hot-button’ issues on campus. That way, at least once a month, the whole show isn’t just about SG or someone coming in to announce an event.
CODY
I also think it would help senators become better educated about the people they represent.
Why should we be concerned with or spend money on sustainability efforts if it’s possible that we could be losing classes or teachers in the budget cuts?
BRITTANY
Being sustainable is also, in some cases, being cost effective. For example, every time you have to add or withdraw a class, it’s a form with four different pages. You have to go to your advisor, the registrar’s office and your professor for signatures.
If we could put that all online, not only could we save a bunch of time, we could save costs of paper and bureaucracy. The time the people in the bursar’s and advisor’s office are being paid for could be put to something more useful than fielding signature requests.
CODY
Sustainability is a cost issue but it is also an issue that is readily available for SG to focus on. We certainly intend to focus on budget issues, but that can’t be everything that SG does. Just because we’re in a budget situation does not mean the progress we want to make on other issues has to stop.
If you do intend to rely on the internet and technology services at UTD to meet sustainability and student outreach goals, is there a plan to ensure reliability of Wi-Fi and programs like eLearning?
BRITTANY
Technology does play a part in our plans but I think it’s fair to expect that it be reliable from UTD or any university. Other universities have systems like eLearning and Orion that are reliable because they take the time to make sure these systems work and are intuitive and not so complex. I think when you force the university to focus on this it will cut down on a lot of issues people have with things being reliable.
CODY
Reliability of internet services is something we would like to see our Technology Committee work on next year. Our intentions aren’t just to throw a bunch of things online and walk away and let them sit.
Do you currently have someone who maintains a social media (Twitter or Facebook) account for SG?
BRITTANY
We have the Communications Committee and the Technology Committee; between those two we are bound to have people who can focus on getting those things going.
Would that be their only task or would they have other projects to work on as well?
BRITTANY
Those committees, from my experience, generally struggle to have projects and that’s especially true of the Communications Committee. Communications really is there to get input and to make sure our outreach is going as far as it can. It would not be their only task, but maintaining a social media account would fit in well with what they are designed to do.
Those committees struggle to have things to do? I was on the SG website a week ago and found broken links.
CODY
It’s true, I’ve been on the website too and found lots of outdated things on there.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done on it and we intend to focus on that also.
BRITTANY
I think part of that is holding whatever chair is in that position accountable.
(Editor’s note: the SG home page did not have any announcements or information about the election as of press time. We had to Google the terms ‘UTD SG elections’ to find a website with information about running for office.)
How are you going to engage commuter students? Those little air fresheners SG gave away weren’t really enough.
(question asked by commuter student, Ajay Srivastava)
BRITTANY
We made our campaign signs from 3 foot by 4 foot pieces of plywood that we painted; they are ridiculous and they are big. Some people may think they are unsightly – I think they’re cute – but they are definitely eye-catching. One of them is going specifically out by commuter parking lots.
I recently became a commuter and I’m starting to get the perspective of that type of student. I see that it becomes a little harder to want to stay on campus for an event at 9:00 p.m. when my class is over at 7:00 p.m. I have a cat, I want to go home and eat and the Comet Café closes early. I think I’m beginning to understand what it’s like being a commuter student and it will help me reach out to that population.
CODY
We’re experimenting with having signs out in the parking lot geared towards the commuters and we’ll see if that works or not.
What is your stance on SG advertising? Can you prove to students that full color ads and posters are cost effective?
BRITTANY
I don’t think I could prove it and I don’t know that they are. I guess you could look at the numbers, for example if the Mercury kept track (and I don’t know whether they do) of everyone who read the paper we could say an advertisement is potentially reaching a certain number of students. I just don’t see how we could tell for sure how many students are reached through advertising.
CODY
It depends on the service. We probably don’t want to ask everyone who comes in for a scantron how they heard about it but people who come in to use the legal services would probably be easier to survey.
BRITTANY
Maybe Cassini could add it to the bottom of the online voting ballot; ‘how did you hear about this election?’
Speaking of legal services, what has happened with the potential re-vamp of the academic dishonesty policy? Will that be an issue you inherit from the current administration?
BRITTANY
I imagine we certainly will be working on that since not much progress has been made. I know it took a long time to form the committee and I don’t think I’ve heard any updates from them.
Something could be resolved by April but if it remains an issue we will definitely take it up.
Have you formed any ideas on how you want to address problems with the current academic dishonesty policy?
BRITTANY
I have not had to deal with academic dishonesty but I have heard from friends who have and the process seemed ridiculous for what they were being punished for.
As far as solutions I would have to do my research first and find out what was tried and failed or if a potential fix would violate a different policy.
If you inherit the issue, will you inherit a record of what has been tried and failed?
BRITTANY
I hope so. The university does keep records of things, you just have to figure out how to find access to them.
What are your plans for addressing housing needs for international students? Many seem to rely solely on volunteer student organizations like the Indian Student Association to find housing and transportation.
BRITTANY
I would want to create a focus group with the students separately and then together with representatives from ISSO (International Student Services Office) and the Multicultural Center and even Matt Grief in Housing. We need to find out if they’re just not being told anything by ISSO, if the services aren’t available or if services are available that they just don’t know about.
Developing a focus group would be a really important first step to discovering why students are coming over here to go to school and not being taken care of.
Are all the committees, subcommittees, campus-wide committees, and the focus groups SG forms necessary?
BRITTANY
A subcommittee is questionable. I don’t think we really need the Sustainability subcommittee but I am not willing to disband it.
Why?
BRITTANY
Because it wouldn’t change the fact that the students on it would continue to meet.
Do student fees go towards meetings for subcommittees?
BRITTANY
No. That’s why it would not change anything; they’re all unpaid.
When it comes time to ask for money for an event, the request comes through the Student Affairs Committee not the subcommittee.
I would not make the Sustainability subcommittee a standing committee, which is what I’ve heard some people talk about. I don’t see any reason for that.
Within SG, it’s interesting that we have a Legislative Affairs Committee considering the legislature in Texas only meets once every two years.
CODY
I’m on the Legislative Affairs Committee and there is more to do because the legislature is in session this year, in off years I don’t know that there is much to do.
I don’t know that getting rid of it would be the best approach.
BRITTANY
Any change you try to make to a standing committee requires a change to our bylaws and that is a long process of approval. It would take a lot of debate. I don’t think that would be a terrible thing, though, because the Legislative Affairs Committee doesn’t really do much outside of the legislative season.
Their main responsibilities have been Govern the Vote or Rock the Vote, which basically is getting students registered to vote, and they’re supposed to inform students of bills relevant to the student body and the university. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve seen that happening.
CODY
We have been working on a student readership project, on Legislative Affairs Committee, where we put newspapers in three different locations around campus for students to pick up. The papers are the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Dallas Morning News.
It is a trial program that starts this week.
BRITTANY
That is a project the Student Affairs Committee could easily have done.
To answer your question, no, I do not think every committee in SG is necessary. University-wide committees is a little bit harder to answer because they all do something a little different and all have different numbers of student representatives on them. Sometimes the student members don’t even get a vote, so I have to question why they are there, but I do think it is necessary every university-wide committee have student representatives on it.
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