By: Nia Harris
OPINION: The Empower Platform, comprised of Rachel Byers, Melissa Hevener and Navdeep Singh has highlighted the importance of “bridging the gap” between students and campus resources and underrepresented students and the administration. This ticket offered several practical solutions to issues that affect students, which would ensure that their administration is effective and involved in student issues. However, there are gaps in their platform and there are questions about whether or not certain initiatives can be implemented.
Bridging the Gap for Underrepresented Students:
Empower states that they hope to work with the University Health Center to implement bystander intervention training and deal with sexual assault on campus. These trainings can be helpful, but on a campus with more than 30,000 students, it is difficult to imagine how this would be implemented. This also does nothing to protect survivors in situations where there is no bystander, such as when someone is alone with a friend or an intimate partner. Free feminine hygiene products would be greatly appreciated by students, especially since there is nowhere on campus to purchase these items in the event of an emergency. Increased resources for the LGBTQ+ Resource Center was also discussed, but in an effort to emphasize “the value of diversity”. There is an obvious lack of initiatives to ensure that this community of students is supported and comfortable on campus. Many within this community can be vulnerable to mental health issues, which are not discussed here, and many transgender and non-binary individuals are especially vulnerable to sexual violence. Unfortunately, all of these issues are talked about separately, and it is unclear if the candidates have a clear understanding of how these issues overlap.
Bridging the Gap Between Students and Campus Resources:
Food insecurity is something that many students struggle with alone and Empower hopes to alleviate that by allowing meal swipes to be donated to the Student Food Pantry. For many who do not use all of their meal swipes, this is a good way to ensure that those meals are not wasted. Of course, there is a question of how this would be implemented and how parents, who often pay thousands for meal plans, would feel about donating swipes instead of buying smaller plans for their student. Also, even though food pantries are a valuable resource, this cannot be the sole resource for food insecure students. They need to able to walk into a dining hall and eat, like every other student. Improvements to parking would also be a welcome change. Empower hopes to add more details to the parking permit application such as daily usage and proximity to campus to not only ensure that students who need parking the most receive it but that they also receive the most convenient parking possible. Improved signage and more crosswalks would help students navigate campus, but there is a question of whether this is SGA’s wheelhouse. Do they actually have the ability to push for these changes? Increased access to open educational resources would also help students, especially those who often conduct research or read peer reviewed articles for their courses. Being able to access these resources can be the determining factor for success in those courses. The money from the Special Institution Fee that they hope to reduce could be allocated to this new initiative, killing two birds with one stone.
Empower mentions mental health issues and how they would advocate for better resources and funding. Once again this does not provide any insight into what they would actually improve about the services provided on campus or how they would go about advocating for new initiatives. Mental health in college is a widespread problem but there is no solution offered in this platform. As mentioned earlier, there is an obvious disconnect between mental health and other topics such as sexual violence and queer identities. Increasing awareness can help, but awareness is not the only solution. While this group was not explicitly mentioned, it highlights an obvious blind spot in Empower’s platform: 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 create winding paths to class for students who use wheelchairs. So where is their place in the conversation? Inclusion is so much more than topics that get the most media attention, they are the topics that affect all students on campus who may identify with multiple communities.
Empower’s platform does offer promise for solving issues to very practical problems. Better parking, increased access to educational resources and feminine hygiene products in restrooms would alleviate some of the everyday struggles many students face. However, there are concerns that consistently underrepresented groups may continue to be underrepresented, and that issues such as sexual assault will only be dealt with after the fact.
*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.