By Nia Harris
OPINION: The ACT Platform, comprised of Asim Ahmed, Charley Claudio and Wesley Tillman, has highlighted the importance of awareness and more specific steps to create a more welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds. This ticket offered several innovative ideas for how to address student needs on campus and advocate for the student body to the administration. However, many of their points raise questions about implementation and execution.
Awareness:
Awareness. The word dances across the page as ACT discusses how to bring more light to issues on campus. They mentioned plans to create a monthly podcast, a media campaign and a bi-weekly newsletter to highlight issues that affect students and faculty, movers and shakers on campus who are working to make change, and “underrepresented” organizations. These ideas are simple and merely require time and effort to curate content, there is a question of who will take on the responsibility of managing all of these publications. Also, there is no mention of what “underrepresented organizations” means. Are they smaller organizations with less support or organizations that serve underrepresented communities? This remains unclear. ACT also states that they will work to create “a better partnership with the LGBTQ+ Resource Center” to promote existing resources and potentially work to provide new ones. Often overlooked, students who require these services fight for visibility and accommodations based on community specific needs. None of these needs are explicitly mentioned in the platform, generating fear that this is merely pandering and that little will actually come to fruition. Forums on mental health and sexual violence are also mentioned, but there does not seem to be more in mind besides talking. It does not seem as if the platform has connected the needs of sexual assaults survivors with the need of transgender and non-binary students, who can be especially vulnerable to sexual violence. One worries that they are not looking at the issue of sexual assault from all angles.
Advocacy:
Simplifying the SGA website is an easy fix that could offer significant benefits in terms of dispersing information to students. In-person town hall meetings would also give students an opportunity to have more direct contact with their representatives and voice grievances as they happen. This could also quiet voices that say SGA does not do much for students. Improvements to Freshman Programs can help them connect with their peers and change the way that first year students view SGA and what they can do for students. Making Blue Books and other testing materials free would be especially helpful to low income students or students who are required to have these materials for multiple classes. Though it may seem small, for many students every dollar counts. Alternative housing options for out-of-state and international students during breaks is an important issue, but what tangible solutions could ACT actually provide? Even then, it is up to the administration to implement any changes. It seems to be a problem with a solution that is above their pay grade. The Food Affordability Coalition does have the potential to address food insecurity on campus. However, there is a question about the scope of the coalition. Will they discuss or advocate? Or both?
Improving services at CAPS was also mentioned. Specifically, ACT believes that streamlining could improve wait times, but there is a question about how improving awareness of services will reduce the amount of time students will wait to receive care. There seems to be little to address issues that can contribute to mental health issues such as stress, isolation, trauma and relationships. While this group was not explicitly mentioned, it highlights an obvious blind spot in ACT’s platform: the needs of students with disabilities. Whether they be learning difficulties, mobility issues or the use of service dogs, students with disabilities have unique needs and struggles yet there does not seem to be any initiative for them specifically. Many older buildings do not have elevators; people have brought non-service animals to class and staircases across campus can creating winding paths to class for students who use wheelchairs. So where is their place in the conversation? Inclusion is not limited to ethnic minorities and queer students, it extends to all students who might fit into many of these categories.
Accountability:
ACT’s plan to create a formal commission on slavery is a bold stance that acknowledges the University’s history of racism and marginalization. This conversation is incredibly necessary and would help students of color feel included and heard. Like other parts of their platform, this initiative has the potential to be all talk with no action. In order to be successful, there has to be more than just conversation. Parking was also discussed in this section with ideas to improve the parking allocation system and used donated canned goods to pay off parking tickets. If this system is implemented effectively, a significant problem on campus can be solved without building more parking lots.
Overall ACT’s plans to create more awareness and give students more opportunities to reach out to their representatives directly could bridge gaps between SGA and students and increase accountability within the organization. Their initiatives to support underrepresented students have pure intentions but fall short in recognizing the intersection of various identities in order to tackle issues such as mental health and sexual violence.
*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.