By: Nia Harris and Tarun Ramesh
OPINION: After an intense week of campaigning in this year’s Student Government Association executive ticket election, both tickets met at the UGA chapel to debate their platforms, policies, and field questions from the audience. Right away, the ACT ticket comprising of Asim Ahmed, Charley Claudio, and Wesley Tillman drew on their shared experiences in both the legislative and executive branch to pitch their platform of awareness, advocacy, and accountability to the audience. The organic composition of the ticket was clearly evidenced and built on over a decade of friendship between Ahmed and Tillman throughout middle and high school. The Empower ticket comprising of Rachel Byers, Melissa Hevener, and Nav Singh iterated their message of bridging the gap between the students and student government. However, the Empower ticket stuck to a set of talking points without giving substantial and in-depth explanation of their policies even when faced with possible sources of criticism.
Health
While both tickets explained the need to expand mental health services for students, Empower stressed the need for a better allocation of funding for CAPS and long-term psychiatrists. Unfortunately, health service fees and funding are under the jurisdiction of the Student Health Advisory Committee and not under SGA. While long-term care is critical for student well-being, a lack of funding has made it difficult for the University Health Center to provide such resources. The health center does, however, recommend certain off-campus resources for care. ACT clearly understood the role of SGA in increasing the publicity of such information through bi-weekly newsletters, town hall meetings, social media campaigning, and podcasts. ACT also hopes to pilot a program called KNOWvember, where their entire administration will dedicate the month to awareness of various resources on campus, which would be helpful for connecting students to the LGBT resource center, religious and multicultural organizations, mental health support, and other counseling services. By detailing student health fee allocations including the inclusion of a behavioral manager position and building expansions, ACT had a nuanced and accurate understanding of health services provided by the University. The expansion of female hygiene products and gender neutral bathrooms across campus were key platform points from Empower that would help visibility not only for women’s health issues but also for non-binary students, an often overlooked group. The current SGA administration is already working to expand access to female hygiene products in bathrooms across the University.
Campus Life
To tackle the issue of sexual assaults on campus, both tickets hoped to better spread awareness and connect survivors to available resources such as RSVP, while also highlighting medical amnesty provisions and the process of investigations through the equal opportunity office. The framing of sexual assault as a cis-women’s only issue fails to incorporate men, transpersons, and other orientations into the question of reducing such assaults on campus. The lack of emphasis on ensuring that investigations are conducted promptly and fairly when assaults are reported further highlighted the simplicity of their plans to address this issue. Over questions surrounding meal plans and accessibility for lower income levels, ACT called for meal swipe donations directly contributing to the Let the Big Dawg Scholarship, which would avoid potential problems with financial aid packages for students. ACT also wanted to create a Food Affordability Coalition in their administration’s cabinet, which would be dedicated towards working with the administration to create sustainable and long-term solutions to meal affordability on campus. The coalition seemed more like a bureaucratic adjustment rather than substantive policy change. Empower focused on expanding meal swipe donations for a food pantry, but the current SGA administration is already exploring such avenues. On the question of campus safety, Empower called for better lighting on campus and connecting more with students over possible solutions. If implemented, this campus improvement project could dramatically reduce crime. For this section, many of the answers referred back to the basic talking points of their platforms and did not provide much in the way of concrete policy changes.
Diversity and Accountability
Even though both tickets rely heavily on diversity and creating a more welcome campus in their platforms, their answers did not mention many groups. When discussing diversity, ACT focused heavily on the black experience despite the fact Ahmed is of South Asian origin and could have offered insight into the experiences of Asian students on campus. Empower talked about bridging gaps between underrepresented students but the only concrete strategy they gave was to reach out and create dialogue. Both failed to address the needs of LGBTQ students and students with disabilities in the same amount of detail, creating concerns that they may continue to be left out of the conversation. While both tickets voiced support for athletes kneeling during the national anthem, Tillman vocally called for the necessity to acknowledge the University’s past with slavery and its ramifications for black students today on campus. Byers expressed that SGA would always act as a conduit for the majority of student voices. While this is comforting on a surface level, Empower was not nearly as direct at addressing this issue as ACT. This mentality could be potentially dangerous for students of color at the University, who not only make up a minority of students, but are also less active in Greek organizations. As a person of color, Tillman’s impassioned condemnation of confederate monuments, memorials, and buildings named after Confederate leaders, such as his own dorm of Vandiver Hall, expressed the need for the University to pursue an inclusive agenda that benefits all students not just the majority of students. Furthermore, Byers’s decision as a white female to field many of the diversity and accountability questions that stressed racial and ethnic tensions at the University of Georgia seemed to trivialize such issues when the other two members of her ticket, both people of color, sat by in silence. Using phrases such as “moving forward” left a question as to whether or not Empower would face these issues head on or avoid them. Each ticket publicly supported the inclusion of DACA recipients to the University and promised to ensure that their transition into colleges are supported by all the resources that the University can provide. While both tickets stress transparency in their platforms, only ACT was willing to call for the University of Georgia Foundation to disclose financial investments, highlighting not only their commitment to transparency, but also holding UGA accountable to the entire student body. Empower noted that the financial competitiveness of the investment portfolio could be compromised, but the University of Texas investment group currently discloses such investments and has not seen any returns lower than standard. Ahmed voiced that ethics should never be compromised for financial gain. By voicing such views, ACT offered a strict ethical bright line, while upholding their own platform of transparency. Finally, Tillman called for a formal commission at the University of Georgia into Slavery and Native American genocide. This type of commission has been created at the University of Virginia and has brought awareness to the University’s controversial past with slavery. Only by acknowledging the past can true progress be made on alleviating racial tension affecting black students at UGA.
Audience Questions
During the audience questions, Empower highlighted the need for programs that involve spring start and international students to help their transition into college life. ACT focused on their stance against the inclusion of A+ grading into University policy, but stated that they would reflect the student opinion survey sent out to students earlier in the semester. When asked about the intentional diversity of the Empower ticket, Hevener explained that it was important to reach out to various pockets on campus to ensure that the student body is well represented. However, the answer seemed to compound on fears that the Empower ticket hoped to pander to specific social groups on campus. Each ticket sought to ensure that the voice of all students would be well represented in their administration. Continuing the conversation of sexual assault from earlier in the debate, ACT was asked about how they plan to help survivors of sexual violence who do not want to prosecute. Their answer failed to address the question and instead encouraged having a dialogue with survivors that “want to come forward”. This could leave some wonder where students who do not wish to report fit into the conversation. Hate speech on campus was also brought up. Neither ticket took a firm stance on what they would do, but Empower did explain that they would want to support students and make sure that they feel safe, leaving few answers for an ever present question. The elitism of SGA was also asked during this section. ACT admitted that there can be a stigma, especially amongst first-year students and suggested creating avenues for students who are not selected for Freshman Programs to get involved so that they still feel included. Empower talked about the importance of reaching of reaching out and hearing a diverse set of opinions. Unfortunately, they had no clear explanation about how this would actually diversify the organization itself.
Overall, both tickets hope to help students connect to various resources on campus. Empower stressed priorities of engaging the student body and creating a new parking priority plan for students, and ACT reiterated their position to call for more accountability from the administration, improve relations with Athens-Clarke County by canned food donations as compensation for parking ticket violations on campus, and the expansion of Thanksgiving Break to a full week. Although both tickets offer bright futures for the University of Georgia, Tillman put it best when in his closing he voiced that “it was time to ACT.”
*Disclaimer: The views in this article are personal views and not the views of the Georgia Political Review, its staff, or its editorial board. Furthermore, the article does not represent GPR’s role as the host of the SGA debate. This article should not be construed as an endorsement for either executive ticket.