President Candidate Platforms

Carmen Gilbert

• Work towards creating a campus environment that makes students feel connected and comfortable.
o Make safety a priority by collaborating with University and City officials to improve lighting conditions surrounding campus, coordinating efforts and funding towards installation of the emergency blue light system, and working towards expansion or creation of new safety programs to promote safety on campus.

I'd like to hear more about the programs. If safety is so important, however, why aren’t you throwing money at the blue light system right now?

o With the creation of the Department of Homecoming the student government is well poised to make the strength of the Pack even stronger. Homecoming is on its way to becoming bigger and better than ever and the new Department allows for the creation of a different, further reaching Flipside Chair for the development of programs aimed at spreading and upholding University of Nevada traditions.

Agreed. What does this have to do with what you want to do next year?

o Work with other University entities to encourage more business development around the campus. There are currently a great number of eateries and convenience stores on or near campus but the University would greatly benefit from the kind of “college community” that surrounds other Universities. These normally include boutiques, coffee shops, bookstores, and a wide variety of restaurants all within walking distance and prove to greatly add to the campus experience. A student voice in this endeavor is crucial to its success.

A student voice in this matter will fall on deaf ears. Surrounding land owners are currently holding out for large payoffs from the University as it expands. Millions of dollars have already been offered to some of the run down businesses, and the President of ASUN isn’t going to change any of this. The expansion plan has been around for years, and it’s getting to the point where the only option is through acquiring this land by eminent domain.

• Help make ASUN programs and services more relevant and responsive to student interests and needs.
o Expand the scope and scale of club support and make these resources easier to obtain by providing more funding to clubs and to existing programs like Inkblot and ASUN Sound and Lights, actively seeking out opportunities for different club services, reworking club allocations timetables to better fit club needs, and updating the ASUN website to better serve the needs of student organizations.

Each year club funding goes up. Nothing new here. More funding for Inkblot isn’t going to make them work any more for clubs considering they are only allowed to promote joint ventures with Flipside. The club timetables need to be changed and it’s good that you recognize this. The website needs to be completely redone. (Side note: thanks for wasting thousands of dollars of student fees on the current design!)

o Make the student voice truly heard by enabling polling and discussion boards on the ASUN website, holding town halls on important student issues, implementing regular open lunches with student leadership and utilizing other new and innovative methods of communication between students and their representatives.

Well, you'll have to fix the website first, but okay. Students don't show up to town halls. This isn't a new idea, and it just doesn't work. Open lunches may attract students, but not because students care to listen to the ASUN President. It would be interesting to hear the other innovative methods.

o Work towards the creation of a Campus Camera program that would allow students to quickly and easily check crowd levels at various campus locations like Lombardi Recreation Center, campus libraries or the Crowley Student Union.

Interesting idea, but wouldn't a better idea be to have a website with numbers of individuals instead of screen shots of students on elliptical machines?

o Help make Flipside programs even better attended and received by listening to the students and giving them what they want. Great strides have been made in regards to speaker series, concerts and late night programming this year and it is vital that this is continued and built upon.

Flipside does listen to students and they already work to give them what they want. How would you do this any better?

• Ensure that ASUN firmly establishes student perspective and constantly serves as a student advocate at the University, Nevada System of Higher Education, and State Legislature levels.
o ASUN exists within a sensitive and ever changing set of circumstances. If the student government is not attentive and student representatives not active, the student voice goes unheard. Current budgetary turmoil, the metamorphosis of the campus dynamic with the opening of new buildings and the upcoming legislative session require constant conversation and activism on the part of your student government. Student leaders must be willing and able to collaborate with other bodies, but also be able to stand up to these other entities when necessary.

Sounds good, but this is very abstract. How and what do you want to do to make this happen? Every candidate that has ever run for ASUN office has wanted to make things better in one way or another, but few ever come in with a realistic plan. You have been a senator for a year now, and you should know what will work and what will not. Be specific.

Eli Reilly

See Mr. Reilly's follow-up comment at the end of this post.

I. Campus Safety

Our university has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, but the recent wave of unusually violent crime that has hit our community has reminded us of how susceptible we are to crime. Unfortunately, our safety on campus cannot be guaranteed, but there are many initiatives that ASUN can undertake that would help make our campus a safer environment.

Problem: Our campus (particularly at night) is not as safe as it could potentially be, as shown by the recent increase in violent crime.

Solution:
- Complete and fulfill the Campus Blue Light Project
- Expand Campus Escort to reduce wait times

Details: For quite some time now, administrators, University Police, and ASUN officials have discussed implementing the Campus Blue Light Project. The time to see this through is now. This Project would install large pillars on campus, each with a blue light at the top (to help in quickly locating one when you need to). The pillar will have one button that contacts 911, and another that calls campus escort. So if at any time you feel threatened while you are on campus at night, you can easily find one of these Blue Lights and call for emergency assistance or for a ride out of there. The entire project (24 Blue Light installations) will cost around $223,000 ($100,000 of which has already been funded by the University). If I am elected your President, I will make a commitment from ASUN that will assist in funding this project (most likely over the course of a few years) and help in finding donors to complete the project. I strongly feel that by installing these Blue Lights that we will return to a much safer atmosphere on campus.

Finally, someone has done some homework. You're still not saying how much you are willing to put towards this project, though. Phrases like "most likely", "will assist", and "help in finding" are not specific, and do not give any of us warm fuzzies when we're walking home at night.

Another issue is the wait time for Campus Escort
(particularly when it is cold outside). As more and more students are using Campus Escort, we have sometimes been forced to wait upwards of 30 minutes for a ride. By making students wait much longer for rides, we are exposing them to significantly more danger than if we were able to respond much faster. By increasing funding to Campus Escort (especially in the winter when more students use the service) we will be able to purchase more vans and hire more employees to ensure that wait times are as low as can be.

Funding was recently increased for Campus Escort. How much more do you want to put into this? A lack of money isn't always the problem. What about the issue of not being able to find students willing to work late hours?

II. The College Experience

What I like to call, “The College Experience,” is the feeling of a traditional campus atmosphere among students at the University. A traditional campus atmosphere includes having many large events put on by ASUN as well as hundreds of extremely active clubs.

Problem: Apathy is very prevalent on our campus.

Solution:

-Increase funding for Flipside Programming to create a year of series-oriented programming on almost every night of the week

Give the newly created Department of Homecoming the funding and resources it needs to plan the best Homecoming the University has seen in many years

Okay, everyone seems to be on the same page here.

Increase funding to Clubs and Organizations to give them the opportunity to hold better events and better themselves and their members

Everyone wants to do this. What makes you different? Clubs and Orgs are a huge part of this campus. Is this all you have to say about them?

Details: By increasing funding to Flipside Programming, we will see the fulfillment of my vision for on-campus events. By focusing on series-oriented events, we can see a semester with an event for virtually every night of the week. For instance: Monday nights would host an Independent/Foreign Movie Series, Tuesday nights would be the Nevada Speaker Series, Wednesday nights could be the Coffee and a Concert Series, and Thursday nights would remain the Thursday Night Movie Series, showing newer films. By increasing the funding for Flipside, we could easily see a year of this sort of schedule. Events like these give students a great venue to meet new people and have a good time. I would like to increase the Flipside budget to $175,000 in the coming year.

Take note: this is the kind of detail you (and everyone else here) needs to have on all of your platform issues. It's no surprise that you would be able to state exactly what you want to do with Flipside, but that is just one of the ASUN Departments.

III. 24-Hour Campus

The needs of our student body have expanded and we need a campus that can meet our demands.

Problem: There is no place on campus anyone can go on a weeknight past 12am to study or socialize.

Solution:

-Work with University administration to secure a 24-Hour Student Union and/or a 24-Hour Library

A problem that has been around for a while. Is there a reason nobody else has been able to solve this?

Details: We have all had to pull an all-nighter to study for a test or finish a project. We have all had roommates who played their music too loud or played video games at the highest volume so we couldn’t study at home. In this case we turn to the Student Union or the library for a place to study late on a weeknight. The problem is that we are all kicked out at midnight. If the Student Union is supposed to be the “living room” of campus, why can’t we be in it past midnight? If I am elected your President, I will work with University administrators in order to get these buildings open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, so there will always be somewhere on campus where students can go to study.

Additionally, I know there are a lot of us out there who have class from 7:00-9:45pm and can’t make it to Lombardi after class (or before, as most students work during the day) because it closes at 11:00pm. I would like to work to have Lombardi expand its hours at least until 2am (ideally also 24-hours) so that we can accommodate for students who are busy during the day and forced to work out at night.

This is a great goal, but "working with the administration" doesn't always pan out. The demand must be shown to prove to building managers that it's worth their money to keep these buildings open. What are you willing to give them from ASUN to make this happen other than simply stating that this is what students want?