Competing views on levels of experience, number of platform issues and efforts to draw student involvement put the two Student Government Association slates at odds during Thursday night's president-vice president slate debate.
Asher Lisec, presidential candidate for Team Lisec, emphasized her team's combined experience in 10 Student Senate committees and caucuses and their authoring of nine pieces of legislation while sponsoring more than 20 in SGA. The slate's 19 platform issues, compared with The Cardinal Movement's four defined issues, include putting a news ticker in the Atrium and developing a People's Platform for students to contribute their ideas.
"I've never known a slate for being attacked so much for having so much experience," Rodney Blount, vice presidential candidate for Team Lisec, told the audience of 40. The team's slogan, "It's all in the C.A.R.D.S," notes the slate's efforts to improve communication, academics, representation, diversity and service.
But Scot Allen, presidential candidate for The Cardinal Movement, said his team was following the advice of past SGA President Tommy Rector in addressing only four main platform issues. With the slogan "Moving Toward a Better Ball State," the team is striving to improve Dining Services, offer late-night transportation to the Village, revise the Academic Calendar and create a Student Memorial.
Ray Hart, vice presidential candidate, said he would like the university to allow some of the money from missed dining card meals to go back into a student's Dining Plus, as well as decrease the price of healthy food items and have facilities open later at night. Blount, however, contested Hart's issue with Dining Services, saying that Ball State's Dining Services ranked as the third best system in the country. He focused more on addressing racial issues by expanding the Multicultural Center and introducing a resident learning community for students to get faculty help in the residence halls, while The Cardinal Movement suggested allowing incoming freshmen to read diversity-related books before arriving on campus.
"What we like to talk about is our ability to go past four issues," Allen said. "We have four issues so we can get through them more quickly. Once we get past four issues, the campus will look like however the students want it to."
Allen also emphasized the benefit of having four new members involved in SGA to add "fresh blood and new ideas." Hart said he is interested in expanding SGA and allowing for more student participation from the university's more than 200 clubs and organizations, as well as making visitors more welcome at Wednesday meetings.
Team Lisec's goals for increasing visibility and student pride include using Facebook to tell students of open positions in Student Senate and University Senate, as well as visiting organizations, Blount said.
Lisec, who is currently SGA president pro-tempore, also confronted The Cardinal Movement about redoing the work of student government and faculty, who revised the constitution so students could become involved in specialized areas of SGA through 80 caucuses. SGA has already accomplished many goals, including a Google search engine on the Ball State Web site, The Loop, a switch from using Social Security numbers to ID numbers, a Web site open 24 hours for requesting courses and a recreation center in progress. In fact, university officials will meet at 4 p.m. Monday to vote on Saturday finals, and university officials will soon visit the statehouse to seek funding for a new rec center during a budgetary year, Lisec said.
"Things are already in the works for SGA," Lisec said. "We just need to get our name out there more."
Aggie Niemiec, assistant director of Disabled Student Development and SGA adviser, said the debate went well.
"I think it's good there are a variety of issues," Niemiec said. "It's good that students can pick whatever issues are important to them and pick which slate represents their needs."
The televised slate debate will air at 7 p.m. Tuesday on Channel 57 and off-campus on Channel 61. This is the first time it will air off-campus.
Click the link under "DN|interactive" at right to listen to MP3 segments of Thursday night's debate.
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