Editor’s note: The Daily Orange Editorial Board interviewed the three sets of presidential and vice presidential candidates running for the Student Association’s 62nd session. In an effort to provide transparency in the editorial board’s endorsement decision, The D.O. has published the transcript of each interview. The following interview has been edited for clarity.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board: To get started, what do you both believe are the biggest issues facing student life at SU and how do you plan to address them?

Kaitlyn Ellsweig: So, one of the first big issues that I think hasn’t been addressed often recently is the issues facing international students. So international students, their population has increased dramatically within the past few years, but resources haven’t caught up. So, talking to international students, what they’d like to see more of on campus is more advising, more integration into social aspects of campus, like international students come here for the full American college experience, but feel like a lot of their advising is more geared toward navigating the legal aspect of going to school in America, not necessarily the social ones.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board: And going off that, what are three tangible ways you would want to improve student life?

K.E: Well, one big one is that there’s a lot of students who have accessibility concerns. One of the first tangible things we would do that would help both students who want to request accommodations from registered student organizations would be to have a mandatory RSOs inclusivity and accessibility training. This way, RSOs would actually know what to do if a student reached out to them requesting an accommodation. This would really help more students to be able to access more of the organizations and the events they put on on campus. The second thing that’s very tangible that we’d like to do is expand learning services. This is actually something the school has been starting to make promises. The Chancellor’s Workforce on Diversity and Inclusivity made the recommendation over two years ago as something that should be enacted within two years, but even though class has started and the school’s been making strides, we think it’s really not fast enough. It’s something that’s been suggested with Invest Syracuse and once again, we just want to see this as something that happens sometime in the next few years. And then the third very tangible thing that we would like to do would be — probably the third one that we would like to do is have the Diversity Affairs committee facilitate dialogues between different RSOs on campus. There’s a lot of RSOs that put on a lot of fantastic programming that promotes diversity. We would like our Diversity Affairs committee to sit these different RSOs together for student dialogue throughout the semester.

The D.O. Editorial Board: Regarding the international student concerns, that’s something that has been a point for a couple years now that has been brought up. What do you think SA can do? Because there really hasn’t been any movement, even though it’s been brought up time and again. What do you think you can do to actually advance that and have some tangible change there?

K.E: One thing that I think has happened a lot recently is that it’s been brought up at budget hearings, brought up at the Faculty Senate, but because Student Association doesn’t necessarily have as many international students compared to the size of the international student population, I think that Student Association just hasn’t been advocating as strongly as it could’ve been otherwise. I think that when Ryan and I are picking which issues we actually want to go to the administration time and time again on, advocating for the international students’ needs would be one of those top issues.

The D.O. Editorial Board: What experience have you had that would aid you both in leading SA?

K.E: I’m the president of Democracy Matters. Through this, I have helped different students facilitate their own campaigns and their own initiatives, as well as worked on my own. Ryan and I actually just came back today from a convention all day, so it’s something we’ve done together, too.

Ryan Houck: And I’m on the Orange After Dark event board. So, every weekend, I’m helping students lead events. I’m helping integrate new board members, so I’m helping them learn the processes of planning events right now — how to order catering and the things we do every week.

K.E: But together, Ryan and I have just been communicating with many different RSOs on campus, many different administrative offices, so it’s something that we have a lot of experience doing.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And what would you say are some of the things that need to be improved within Student Association? And how would you go about implementing these changes?

R.H.: The first one we feel is transparency, especially through the website right now. That’s also not just transparency, but accessibility too. It’s not very accessible to begin with, and it’s very hard to find things, as well. And the big thing is that minutes were just recently updated, I think two weeks ago, with only the first five minutes of the assembly meetings — the new finance board meetings aren’t even on there — so a big thing would be making sure those are available to the students, because according to the bylaws, they’re supposed to be up 24 hours after the assembly and finance board meetings, and they haven’t been all year.

K.E: Yeah, and kind of going off of that, with transparency, there’s also communication from Student Association. The thing that we think isn’t really accessible is SA’s office hours currently. Right now, office hours haven’t been posted, which is actually a decision made by the Board of Elections membership, to allow flexibility for student assembly representatives. However, we think that office hours are for students, not necessarily for the representatives. What should happen is the office hours, when they’re in the SA office, should be posted on the website, even if they change every week. That way you know who’s going to be there or if somebody is going to be there when an RSO president tries to go down or tries to contact SA. And then second, I think that the SA office hours should move out of the SA office, so student assembly representatives should be going to RSO meetings, should be going to different forums, should be going to floor meetings. And this should count toward office hours.

The D.O. Editorial Board: In terms of your relationship to administrators, how would you approach that as a person kind of advocating for student needs?

K.E: I think the biggest thing is that the administration does respect the Student Association president and vice president, especially I think in more recent years with some of the things that James Franco and Angie have done, things that Joyce LaLonde has done, so I think we would want to make sure that we’re fostering this relationship where the chancellor feels comfortable talking to us and getting a genuine input of what students want, but we also would be willing to push back on the university — respectfully, of course. We’d like to see from the university — the university will not always be able to tell us yes, but sometimes, even if they tell us no, we’d like to be able to come back again and ask for the same things again. It’s something that we have no problem with in our advocacy for student needs, pushing back against the university when the university tells us no. It’s something that we think the students deserve and really need.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And could you describe the SU administration in three words?

K.E: Large, for one thing.

R.H.: Corporatized.

K.E: Not representative, I’d guess. Probably.

The D.O. Editorial Board: You mentioned that you think the chancellor and the vice chancellor maybe respect the SA leadership more. Do you think there maybe needs not more respect, but in terms of making SA something they really listen to — versus the trustees, who I think we can acknowledge have a lot more influence than the undergraduate student government — what do you think you can do to sort of…?

K.E: Well, I think it really depends on the situation. It depends on what the issues are that need to be addressed, and how much the administration is willing to work with us to begin with. I think that with Invest Syracuse coming up, there’s a lot of really big decisions to be made. Not saying that we would go this far, but in the past, Student Association presidents have even organized walkouts from the student body. I think that Student Association, when it’s really organized and has a lot of students very involved, it has more power. So. if there’s a lot of colleges that don’t have full representation, if there’s an impression that not a lot happens in Student Association, the administration won’t listen more. But by making Student Association a more effective body that has more students involved, the administration will have to respect it more.

The D.O. Editorial Board: What would you say that (SA President James Franco and Vice President Angie Pati) did well in their time as SA leaders?

K.E: One thing I think that they did very well was just increasing awareness among students from things like the free basketball tickets to mental health — there’s a lot of students that never knew Student Association existed and now they at least know James’ and Angie’s names. I think that’s something they did very well.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And what do you that maybe didn’t work well in the administration?

K.E: I think even talking to James and Angie, I think — and just talking to other SA members in the past — one thing that’s very difficult to manage is managing cabinet, managing assembly, as well as directly managing your own initiatives. Those three things together take a lot of organization and a lot of delegation, and sometimes it is hard to balance all three aspects. I think that’s something that could definitely be improved on in the future. Do you want to add anything to that?

R.H.: Not really, I think that’s the main thing that needs to be worked on next year.

The D.O. Editorial Board: So what sets you apart from the other candidates?

K.E: One thing I think we’re very willing to do is — well first, we don’t necessarily have the same breadth of issues because we’ve decided to focus on a few very tangible aspects of our platform. We wanted to look at every issue and then decide, “Is this something that we think is really reasonable?” And we’ve kind of approached it as “what are things that we can actually see happen on campus next year” rather than what is everything we want to see happen. And I think off of that too, we’re also just very willing to push the administration and to put students first, and we will not take no for an answer.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And how do you plan to represent students whose experiences you can’t relate to? Whether that’s gender, sexuality, race, financial status, ability, etc.?

K.E: Letting them speak for themselves. This is actually something that, when we talked to a few different organizations that we definitely do not represent, this is what they requested of us, is give them the platform to speak for themselves, rather than having them express their concerns to us and we take that to an administration official. If we can bring them into the room with us, that’s the best way to do it.

R.H.: And just going off of that, just like, going to talk to RSOs during the campaign trail, that won’t end if we win. We’re going to continue talking to RSOs, seeing and hearing what they need and what the university needs to do to better help the undergraduate population.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And do you think SU has a responsibility to support the greater Syracuse community and if, to what extent?

K.E: Yes, and that’s actually a very integral aspect of our campaign. We think that there — it has to go both ways. The city has so much to offer this school, but the school also has a lot to offer the city. We think that students who are able to get off campus, students who have those experiences within the city, are better for it. And we also think that when we’re sent — a lot of students have this image that we’re the campus on the hill. A lot of community organizations also view it as students are not willing to get off the hill. This is a really big problem when Syracuse has one of the highest problems of poverty in New York state, and there’s a lot that can be done here. So I think what we would really like to see SA do is promote student organizations that have these long-lasting relationships. That way, we can build and sustain a relationship with the city rather than going in for one day that’s high publicity, just kind of — essentially, community service to post on Instagram. We think that we need to have this long-lasting relationship and sustain partnerships with community organizations.

R.H.: Another part of our off the Hill initiative, which is our community engagement issue, is also trying to dispel the stereotype that off campus is dangerous. It’s dangerous at night sometimes, but like during the day, it’s relatively safe. Like I walk down to the Ronald McDonald House, which is a few blocks off campus, every other week sometimes.

K.E: And just like, there’s a lot of different cultural groups and there’s a lot of diversity in the city, and students really should access that more.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board: Having never been in Student Association before, do you think you’ll face any limitations as president and vice president, if elected?

K.E: I don’t think limitations, but I think it means that we need to work a lot harder. And I think that’s something we’ve already started doing. We’ve both read the bylaws and constitution multiple times, we both have been talking to various SA representatives. I’ve been to SA meetings multiple times over the course of the past few years, Ryan’s been to a couple this year, but we acknowledge that it just means we’re going to have to work very hard so we understand those inner workings. I don’t think it’s going to put any limitations into what we can actually achieve though, because I think that’s just working with people. Those communication and people skills, as well as having that vision and having that initiative.

The D.O. Editorial Board: You’ve mentioned improving on-campus mental health resources, specifically what would you tangibly like to change or improve?

K.E: Well one thing that Student Association is currently working on is the peer listening service. If this doesn’t happen this year, which it is getting a short timeline now, it is something that we’d continue to push for, as well. I think as well, hiring more staff members at the counseling center just puts us on par with other universities, but that’s not necessarily where we want to be. So I think, especially with Invest Syracuse as they’re trying to decide where to spend this money, one thing that they definitely need to do is hire more faculty, more full-time staff members for the counseling center. Right now, the counseling center is geared more toward short-term care instead of being a long-term solution for students, and I know we’ve acknowledged it is expensive to be able to provide long-term care, but to not have a lot of options at all for students is limiting.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And to go off that, you kind of partially answered this, but would you urge the university administration to allocate Invest Syracuse funds to some specific programs, and if so, could you name three?

K.E: Well I think the first one is international students, the Slutzker Center. And then I think probably, the counseling center, and then probably the DCC.

TThe D.O. Editorial Board: Just a follow-up on that, just a hypothetical, how would you start this conversation, say, for the Slutzker Center if you want the administration to put more funding into staff resources there? How would you start that conversation? What would you do first, and how would you approach it over the course of a month?

K.E: I think it’s very powerful when you can have a lot of students respond. So for instance, on the Invest Syracuse page, there’s a suggestions link. A lot of students don’t know what Invest Syracuse is or how to voice their concerns. What we would do is first start reaching out to students, have them do their own suggestions, then go to the administration saying “you’ve heard all these student concerns, these are what students want, now we’re going to tell you directly as well.” And then kind of go off of it. It’s not just the two of us stating it, it’s the demands of the student body.

The D.O. Editorial Board: If you are elected, how would you connect with the SU administration to advocate on behalf of students?

K.E: Well, obviously we have the regular meeting with the chancellor, however even more recently, we’ve been starting to make that list of administrations key and crucial to a lot of things we’d like to see on campus. We’d be contacting them pretty immediately and setting up initial meetings just to get to know them and to start developing that relationship. It can’t just be us going to them with a demand, we have to have that relationship in place first.

R.H.: And also, trying to set up some open forums where the students can come and directly talk to some of the upper echelons of the university just to make sure that the university doesn’t think we’re just telling it, that it’s actual students that demand this, and this is what they want.

The D.O. Editorial Board: Would you continue the Euclid Shuttle program if elected, if so, why and do you think it’s worth the cost?

K.E: I mean, students have directly told us they want it. They’ve actually asked us to expand it, because it wasn’t — this is actually something more recent that was asked of us, so we haven’t had as much time to look into it, but that was actually the request, is expand the Euclid Shuttle.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And to expand it how?

K.E: More buses, more bus times, as well as I think —

R.H.: I think right now it just runs on the weekend, and they want it to run during the week as well. That’s a lot of what we’ve heard from the students.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And one thing our editorial board will be discussing on Sunday are the teams opting not to take part in our independent debate. We just wanted to give you a chance to respond to that, and — please correct me if I’m wrong — but your team was in until Jankovic pointed out the bylaw rule?

K.E: Actually, that wasn’t the case. So, we spoke with Ghufran and Kyle, John and Serena, and Ghufran had no availability on Sunday because of the timeline. So originally when we were in, at that moment, Ghufran was saying that she could potentially get permission to skip the debate, but it was after talking with her, I think the day I emailed you, that she had said that she wasn’t able to.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board: So your campaign pulled out when Ghufran’s was no longer available?

K.E: Yeah. So I would have had to also get permission to miss a few things; for instance, I had a mandatory Syracuse University Ambulance training, but shortly before I sent the email, I got the clearance to miss the training, but obviously it wasn’t going to happen anyways so we wanted to show that solidarity and that it wasn’t just one campaign pulling out, it was all of us just not being able to do it.

The D.O. Editorial Board: And what are your plans in case you aren’t elected?

K.E: Well first, I would definitely like to apply to cabinet. I want to be a part of Student Association. I think the two of us, we’ve talked through so many initiatives that we would like to see happen on campus. Just because we’re not elected doesn’t mean we’re not going to push for those.

The D.O. Editorial Board: Why do you think you two in particular, why do you think you make a good pairing? I think an effective SA administration seems to be a good partnership, so why do you think you guys work?

R.H.: Me and Katie actually met in a professional relationship through DM, we both worked on the Standing Rock pipeline campaign for Democracy Matters when we held that. I was doing the introduction and she was actually the head of the campaign, and we started off very professional working and we were able through this year, once she became president, become close friends and we were able to continue that professional relationship and friendship but still respect what each other do.

K.E: I think one thing that’s very powerful is that you and I typically come at an issue or an idea from two completely different directions. Even today, we were talking about what we’d like to see — so the Democracy Matters convention we had today, he came up with a theme for next year’s convention which was completely different from what I was envisioning it, but I think that’s kind of what makes us greater. Even when we disagree, it’s never something huge, it’s never something that limits us, it just makes us view a completely different perspective, and I think that’s actually something solid with us.

The D.O. Editorial Board: Democracy Matters is like your common link. Is there anything about what you’ve experienced in Democracy Matters and what you’ve learned that you think might have shaped you and might translate to SA and leading the student body?

K.E: Yeah no, I think one thing that I really like through Democracy Matters is that I’ve met so many students. There are so many students, and I’ve personally registered so many students to vote, but then I’ve gotten to meet so many different RSO leaders, through for instance, through just this past convention, I’ve met the presidents of the NAACP or Brain Feeders, or just all these different groups that are very different and I never would’ve interacted with otherwise. And I think it really has given me the opportunity to just learn more about what’s out there on campus.

The D.O. Editorial Board: Is there anything either of you would like to add before we wrap up?

K.E: I think just the biggest thing that Ryan and I, why we’re running to begin with, is that we both considered Student Association in the past. It was always a very difficult decision not to run. For instance, I would’ve had to give up the place where I volunteer because I volunteer there Monday nights, so it was just always difficult decisions, but I think what really, why we’re running now is we’re just really passionate about this community and we really bleed orange, and we want to give back in anyway we can.

R.H.: And empower student voices too. Because James and Angie did a good job with it, but I think it needs to go further.

The D.O. Editorial Board: All of you have said that you want to join cabinets — if you don’t win, you want to apply to a cabinet. I don’t know if you can talk about it, but with the other candidates running, do you think it would be good to involve them if they’re not elected?

K.E: Well, I think the first point, I think the reason all of us have said that is because I think it’s very different than the last campaign. So for instance, neither Roy Tin or Tyler Rossi decided to join SA, and I think it’s because just the nature of the last campaign was very different. We didn’t know Ghufran or Kyle going in, but we’ve gotten to know them pretty well and we respect them. And I think, no matter who wins, we know that we’d still respect Student Association and it’s still something we would want to be a part of.

R.H.: We became really good friends with all the candidates of the campaign this year.

K.E: I mean, we already knew John pretty well. He’s the vice president of Democracy Matters so that was very interesting. But I think it’s just, yeah, I think we all really — we’re all very passionate about being part of the change on campus and it’s something that, no matter who wins, we don’t see who wins as a problem, but we just see it as the next step.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board: No, yeah, I realized as I was asking the question, it wasn’t appropriate but —

K.E: I mean, we’re cool with it. We’ve actually all been joking about it, that it’s just so different than last year. Which has been a good experience for us, and it’s harder because it’s harder running against people you respect. Like if you don’t respect them it would be so much easier to envision what we want to do and to just think we’re more highly qualified, but I think all of us respect each other but we all still believe we’re the best candidates. It’s fun.

Published on April 9, 2018 at 4:26 am

Contact: opinion@dailyorange.com