By: Patrick Wheat
Voting for next year’s batch of Student Government Association (SGA) representatives begins today. Two tickets – Embark UGA and Reach UGA – are vying for executive positions. GPR Associate Editor and SGA watcher Patrick Wheat sat down with the candidates to learn who they are, what their ideas are, and how they will lead the students of UGA.
The Reach ticket features Richie O’Connell, a third-year political science and chemistry major running for President, PJ Turrentine, a second-year psychology major running for Vice President, and Joseph Arnold, a third-year marketing and public relations major who is running for Treasurer.
Tell me in 50 words or less, What is Reach?
PJT: Reach to me is a mixture of students views from all parts of campus, a variety of views, that we want to take and use to make great ideas of SGA, and we want to take different perspectives and build one big idea that everyone contributes to.
JA: For me, its about bringing an energy back to campus to help make life better for students on campus. It’s just not something that is at the forefront of the conversation in everyday situations and we are glad to bring it back to the forefront of the conversation and bring energy to that goal.
RO: Piggybacking on what PJ said, if you look at our action plan now and if you were to categorize it by topic, categorize it by who gave input on it, you would have a lot of categories. We really strive to incorporate the different ideas of different people to help us find out what matters to students at the end of the day. PJ has been on her track at college, Joseph has been on his and I have been on mine, but the three of us alone can’t understand the problems a student who works on South Campus, an art student or a music student, and that is the type of thing that we wanted to incorporate.
You talked about bringing students back to the forefront of the conversation. What has Reach proposed that is different than what SGA is already doing to make students to focus of the conversation
JA: I think one of our big things that we want to do, that is Richie’s child, is our Outreach team. That is something that is unique, the idea of going out to where students are they are and letting them voice their concerns and hearing their concerns in normal day-to-day conversation. So, I think that is one way we are making student concerns the forefront, which is different than what has gone on in the past
PJT: Also, piggybacking on what he said, digitizing everything is a large part of our campaign. Students should be able to get on our website and know exactly what is going on and SGA should promote it all the time, so it’ll be all over the blogosphere. “What up Dawg?” is one of our platform points, a website that is a digital dropbox, comment box, giving students the chance to rate what is most important to them on campus and that is something that is very important. People are always on their computer, always on their phone and we want to have a new, cool, innovative way to reach out to students, because people aren’t going to be walking around campus and say “Hey! I want to stop by the SGA office!” They are alot more likely to be on their computers than go out of their way. If they are really upset about something, they can let us know, either through the dropbox or through the rating system.
RO: For us it is not about “What are we going to do differently? What is SGA currently doing so wrong?” It is about taking that next step and building on what those that have come before us have been able to build, especially in relationships that we can be a part of. Mallory Davis, the president of SGA two years ago did such a great job building relationships with administrators that Will, Marshall and Anush were able to take advantage of and we want to further that and do more for students and try to solve the problems they face day in and day out.
Speaking of problems students face, what are some of the things that Reach would like to propose after coming into office that specifically address the needs of UGA students?
RO: Well, one of my personal favorites are the enhancement of the “Grade my Landlord” website. Everybody needs a place to live, because so few people live on campus after their freshman year, and this is a website currently in existence, so this is not something we would have to go and create ourselves on top of the other technological initiatives we have. We want to promote that and get the dialogue going between students. We want to open the lines of communication between SGA and students, and students to each other.
Your platform is essentially divided into three main categories: “Reach In, Reach Out, and Reach Up.” What is the importance of the Reach Out component when you are trying to win an election that is only about SGA students?
RO: It is more of an extension of Reach In. Internally on campus you cannot see all the problems that exist just because I go to class. I don’t run into the same problem other UGA students run into, just as how we as UGA students don’t necessarily know the solutions to the problems that we have here. So, what Reach Out is more about dialogue with other schools, albet, SEC schools or otherwise, and try to get ideas from them; to find out about the issues they face, about the solutions they have tried, and see what we can take from there and make work here.
JA: We really have that component as part of a learning experience. Chances are, the more input we get on an issue, you may get a solution you hadn’t thought of before. That is the idea of having a Reach Out component and to establish University of Georgia as a leader in our region and in our state, which is very important to us, which is the main point of having a Reach Out component.
PJT: I think Reach Out is really important because Georgia schools are all struggling with the same issues, HOPE scholarship, Zell Miller cuts and I really think we can merge our Reach mentality. We want to Reach out on campus, we want to Reach out to schools all over Georgia, the SEC. We want ideas flowing because the best ideas are a conglomerate of ideas. One person with a good idea is great, but we think it is better to build upon that initial idea.
The first week of campaigning has finished. How do you feel your platform has been received? How do you feel the students are reacting to your ideas? Do you feel you have reached any impassable difficulties with the election being in a few days?
PJT: I think the students have received it really well. We have had students who none of us knew personally come up to us and ask to work on the campaign because they love the platform and what we want to do with SGA, that we are all just students who want to help other students, that we are not just sitting in our suits, all super fancy. We want to appeal to everyone. We have personalities just like they do and everyone’s viewpoints and opinions are vital.
JA: I think so as well. There is just a contagious spirit about wanting to implement change on campus, which is why I think it has been received so well. I have also had students I didn’t know tell me “We really like your ideas and they really are what we want to see.”
RO: The only thing I want to add is that the amazing number of students who come up to us who have seen our initiatives and seen how we work, what we would like to do, what we can bring to campus, and I have not known a single one of them before hand. That to me is amazing, these students who I previously had no interaction with volunteering to help build our vision for UGA.
Due to the short time you have to campaign this year, as opposed to previous years where candidates have had more time to campaign, what are you all looking forward to next week that will help send home the message: “Reach is the best answer for SGA.”
RO: This past week has been more about Social Media, as they have done away with the “active and passive” terminology in the SGA Elections code, next week is going to be more about a physical presence on campus, t-shirts, meet and greets in Tate, things like that. Next week is just as important as the past week has been because so many of our initiatives are about going out to students and help them in their daily lives in a real, tangible and physical way, and that will come across a lot next week. So many of our action plan goals are about reaching out to students the way students reach out to each other and that comes with Social Media. The example we use is if you find a cool YouTube video, you post it on someone’s Facebook timeline, you tweet it at someone and that is the sort of thing that we have done and continue to do. We view the upcoming week as an extension of Reach. Both weeks we are going to try to push what we want to do, more of a “Show, don’t Tell,” mentality.
PJT: We want a lot more facetime with people, we want to let people express their personalities to us, to get a chance to express our personalities to them, to engage the student body as a whole. We want to let them know that it is not all about the cheesiness, it’s not all about policies and regulations, we want to know what they are thinking and feeling about UGA. We want to be all over campus, because that is the whole point of our platform. I am really excited about next week and I think it will be a lot of fun.
JA: Something I am excited about next week is to have everyone else who has worked with us so far during this campaign out there with us. So far, we have been the most visible people, which makes sense because we are the ones running, but we have tons of other people from all other parts working with us and I think it will be exciting to have us and the other people with us to intermingle with students on campus and to start building our dialogue now.
RO: And we definitely have a few surprises for next week! So keep your eyes peeled for those!
Voting begins March 25 and ends March 28. Log into Oasis using your UGA MYID to vote for President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and school Senators.