Differences between Senate tickets shown during first debate

EducationPolitics
Written By Brook Endale

With a staggering five candidates for Student Senate president this year, multiple ideologies and promises were given during Wednesday’s Senate Presidential Debate.The debate brought in a large crowd of mostly campaign supporters in Porter Hall. Ryant Taylor of BARE, Ben Mathes of Student Nation, Tony Piccioni of Phoenix, Gabby Bacha of SOS and Marquis Maines of TIME all presented their platforms to students at the Student Senate Board of Trustees event.The next debate, the executive debate, will be held April 9 at 7 p.m. in Walter Hall 135. Voting begins April 14 at 7 a.m. and ends April 16 at 7 a.m.Click through to read more description of each ticket's responses.

Ryant Taylor of BARE

Taylor, current LGBTQA commissioner, pushed the idea that Student Senate should be a forum where students can think for themselves rather than be representative of students.“Changing Ohio University is not about representing students; it is about empowering one another to believe that wanting decision-making power on issues that affect us all,” Taylor said during his opening remarks. “[BARE’s platform] is not ridiculous, it’s not radical, it’s not farfetched; it’s human.”Taylor expanded on the need for mandatory cultural competency classes for students, staff and faculty members, which he is currently working on already with New BLAC. He said the classes would help people experience viewpoints that may be foreign to them. He also said that he would continue to advocate for unionizing student workers.Straying from the rest of the candidates, Taylor said that he sees the role of Senate president as not a representative position but an empowering one. However, he also said that he would use his position to “hold the administration accountable.”“I don’t want to be a representative; I want to be one person among many, and I want to understand the experiences of those around me,” Taylor said. “And I feel that will empower me a good Student Senate president, because beyond that, you’re simply closing off the opportunity that Student Senate has to actually enable everyone.”

For a good amount of the debate, Taylor was on the defense as other candidates criticized the current Senate for mocking students with dissenting opinions, not representing student needs and being unaccountable. He maintained that he has done a lot of work for students and the university during his time in Senate, putting the blame on dissenting senators. “I can say with a majority of the Senate that we have done the work we were promised to do,” Taylor said. “We opened up Senate to be more democratic, we opened voting rights, we’ve let students speak on the floor, we’ve allowed students to put forward resolutions… and I argue that a lot of the accountability that wasn’t tracked were a lot of the people that didn’t like that Student Senate was changing in a way that’s more democratic, so they simply didn’t do the work that they were elected for.”

Ben Mathes of Student Nation

Mathes, the current Governmental Affairs commissioner, put a lot of focus on Senate collaborating with other student governments and representatives in the Ohio Statehouse to bring change to OU. “Student Nation reflects that as members of a public university, we are joined together with all members of public universities across the nation and fighting for a more responsible public service in the form of higher education,” Mathes said. “That means getting students on the Board of Trustees across the nation and being open with our allies as students.”

Mathes said that he would work with the university, OUPD and APD to combat sexual assault by installing more street lights and making sure the police focus on protecting students rather than arresting them for alcohol or drug-related charges. He also said that to address energy concerns at OU, the university should build the pipeline under the Hocking River but institute a carbon tax and work with Athens county to aggregate energy.Mathes acknowledged that the Student Union-led Senate has done “great things” but that constant protests isn’t the way to solve the university’s issues.“Though [BARE members] like to rally on campus, and though that’s important, the real battle is at the Statehouse,” Mathes said.

Tony Piccioni of Phoenix

Piccioni, a junior studying sports administration, laid out a platform where Senate would serve all students and organizations’ needs, focusing on Senate accountability.“Leadership, in my mind, has to be more than a demonstration,” Piccioni said in his opening remarks. “It has to be more than looking back and saying who is to blame for your problems. It has to be more than personal entitlement, trying to go after something for personal gain or for using own personal vendettas. Leadership has to be achieving results. It has to be doing what those who elected you wanted you to do for them.”Piccioni explained that Senate’s best role would be to provide short-term savings for students, which included ideas like providing free e-textbooks for students and offering waivers in the General Fee, which pays for sporting and student events. He would also combat sexual assault (which he expands to “power violence” since it consists more than sexual crimes) by creating a committee in Senate committed solely to reducing sexual assault on campus and creating an anti-sexual assault culture on campus.

When Taylor said that short-term fixes from Senate were “Band-Aid reforms,” Piccioni responded that every dollar saved counts for college students. “You can call them what you want, but it’s still money in students’ pockets when it’s all said and done,” Piccioni said. “So we do believe in getting more indirect costs down for students to get more money.”

Gabby Bacha of SOS

Bacha, a current South Green senator, focused on SOS’ wish to purely represent the students. “It is our top goal to serve you, the students,” Bacha said. “In order to do that, SOS is committed to ensuring that Senate members are educated and accountable every step of the way. SOS is committed to putting aside petty and radical politics and increasing student representation and involvement. We want to ask you what you want and not tell you what you need.”

Bacha said that a SOS Senate would immediately implement a rule where, with signatures of 10 percent of the university, a recall election for Senate members would be held. This was originally part of the #RecallSSE campaign. She also advocated for incentive-based wage increases for student works that worked for the university longer, as well as working with the administration in suggesting budget changes.Bacha referred to her experience as being a dissenting senator in the current Senate as evidence that it needed to be changed.“When someone else would voice dissent, they would often get shut out or shut down, and I think that’s something that needs to be changed,” Bacha said. “I thinking having different ideologies about how to run student government is a great thing, but we need to work on a plan that respects everyone, which is something that we would really hope to do next year.”

Marquis Maines of TIME

Maines, president of the Epsilon chapter of Epsilon Nu Tau, focused on his need to serve minorities, which he says everyone is in some way.“I really want to take an approach unlike the ones that we’ve have seen prior,” Maines said. “I know nothing about Student Senate; I have no formal understanding of what Student Senate does. But I know as a student what I desire on campus. I know as a minority what we desire to see on campus. My approach is to talk to other students who are in that same minority class and get where we want to be as a university.”Maines said that as president, he would institute a student foundation that awards scholarships to students, courtesy of current Senate Treasurer Zainab Kandeh’s Action Campaign last year. He also advocated for free meals for student culinary workers after their shifts, which he says non-student culinary workers already get.When it comes to Senate finances, Maines criticized how much money “the big three” student organizations, Black Students Cultural Programming Board (BSCPS), International Student Union (ISU) and University Programming Council (UPC), get from SAC funds. Each of the three organizations receives $80,000 yearly from SAC.“I know that funding was recently cut from $100,000 to $80,000 a year for each of ‘the big three,’ but that’s a lot of money being allocated towards three organizations,” Maines said. “For my objective to represent minorities, I would want funding to be dispersed more equally across the board.”

Brook Endale
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