| Candidates share views at debate |
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| Written by Christopher Stryker | |
 Beth Groenke and Adam Helton squared off in a debate to express why each thought they would make a good student council president. To start the night, each candidate spoke about their general goals and backgrounds. Helton, a sophomore in psychology, is relatively new to student council, but offered what he thought were fresh perspectives. He focused most of his time on his goal of making student council more accessible to the student body as a whole. He said that he was dissatisfied with how he saw student council run his freshmen year. In his eyes, student council did not truly represent the opinions of the campus as a whole. Though he believed that tremendous progress had been made this year, he said “I just want to take that a step further.” Helton says that he wants students to be able to take ownership and responsibility for each decision. Groenke, a junior in interdisciplinary engineering followed. Groenke has been involved with student council in varying aspects since 2004, and will continue to make it her primary commitment That commitment, she said, will be a key element of her presidency. Another key element of her platform is progress. She has several specific plans that she shared, such as better communication with students, creating more resources to help students achieve academic success, as well as setting up a program to give students access to basic dental care at reduced rates. Both candidates presented changes they would like to see in student council to encourage better communication, and improve involvement, between both undergraduate and graduate students. One of Helton’s goals is to work on the student council website in order to make it more easily accessible. He believes that a direct link from the main UMR page and more complete contact information for each representative would make it easier for students to find and contact their representatives. Helton said that he did not have specific plans at the current time for creating more graduate student input, but said that graduate students represented 20 percent of the student population, and should, therefore, have proportional representation in student council. Groenke laid out several ideas, starting with changing the student council meetings to make them shorter. While she said many of the meetings this semester had been long because they had accomplished so much, there were still ways to trim down the length. One such idea was having someone at each meeting to help individuals unfamiliar with Robert’s Rules of Order compose their thoughts in appropriate and productive ways. Another of Groenke’s goals is to improve communication with students that are not members of student council by creating an e-mail distribution list that the student council president can use to communicate directly with students,.Currently, e-mails are sent out through a series of individuals that must then forwarded the messages to individual students. With respect to graduate student involvement, Groenke said there were several ways she could see to make improvements, and said that she would encourage graduate students to take advantage of member-at-large positions that were available. She also said that the funding process for the Council of Graduate Students should be reviewed, as it is currently decided largely by undergraduate students. One student asked about he issue of credit towards tenure for design team advisors. Currently, the advisors don’t receive credit towards tenure for taking those positions, and the student felt that this was potentially hurting the teams. Helton said that this seemed to be something that should be addressed. “It’s hard to get quality folks when your not giving credit for what they do,” he said, saying that he would look into it if elected. Groenke agreed that it was something that should be investigated. She said that while traditionally students were not given much input on the tenure process, she feels that the students input would be valued in this case. There were also several questions on how they would approach the position if they are elected. Helton reiterated his goal of opening the process up to all students, and said that he would focus on ensuring that the name change and restructuring processes went smoothly. “If this process doesn’t go forward the correct way, this could be a rough year, but if they’re done right they could be very good,” Helton said. While he does not currently have a relationship with most of the administration and student council, he expressed a desire to work with administrators and student council members and develop those relationships as soon as possible. “I’m willing to learn,” he said. “I’m willing to take on a challenge like this.” He said that if he is elected, the most important aspect of the job would be staying organized, so that he wouldn’t get buried. Groenke said one of her key goals would be helping SAFB work more closely with organizations. “It’s really important that we have that process as efficient as possible,” she said. Groenke said her relationship with the administration is currently strong, as she has talked to many people already regarding her desire to run for president. “Representing students is the number one job of the student council president,” she said. Groenke wants to make sure that she knows the opinions of the students and that she’s presenting them in the best way possible. She says that students frequently come up to her with input on current events. “I love that. That means I’m doing my job.” |
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