Campaigning has begun and soon the student body will be under new leadership. This Thursday, you can vote on Blackboard from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. for your future student body President, Vice President and V.P. of Campus Activites Council. A number of well qualified and experienced candidates are running this year. To keep your head from spinning around all the party promises, names and slogans, we’ve got you covered with this guide to ASG Elections 2012. Read on to learn more about the four different parties running for election this year.
“Determined to Deliver” Party
Candidates: Taylor Davis (President) and Drew Doggett (Vice President)
Platform: We believe that our background displays how in our time at Miami, we have been a part of a numerous and diverse amount of clubs/organizations at Miami and we will represent a large amount of the student body. We want to be the liaisons between students and ASG. Our goal is to have students voices heard and create medias for students to know what is going on in ASG and what is being done to change things. Along with that we want to be accessible to the students. Below you will see the specific changes we plan to make while in office.
If elected, some of the goals this party hopes to accomplish are:
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Improve advising: One of the themes of this year’s campaigning is a change to the infrastructure of advising here at Miami. Many students do not receive adequate attention within their division and we find it unacceptable when some students fall behind.
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Transportation changes: Working to improve the Miami Metro and Door-to-Door. ASG is already working to restructure Miami metro and we will look for student input with how these changes should occur.
- First-year course forgiveness: Freshman year can be one of the most difficult times in one’s college career and should be a period of acclamation. We would like to put fourth a more flexible plan allowing more forgiveness to first-years who have made mistakes.
Learn more about Davis and Doggett by reading their Her Campus Profile. Visit the “Determined to Deliver” party website, Facebook and Twitter for more campaign information.
“Make It Your Miami” Party
Candidates: Meghan Wadsworth (President), Rob Harrelson (Vice President) and EJ Corporan (VP CAC)
Platform: We are running on a platform that is focused on the idea that the students should be able to individualize their Miami Experience. We want to give students the necessary tools in order to allow them to make their time at Miami unique. We see engaging in high impact experiences, such as study abroad, internships, research, and student organizations, as one of the distinct factors that sets our students apart from students at other schools. We will campaign for change that will make Miami better for the current student body and the generations of students to come.
If elected, some of the goals this party hopes to accomplish are:
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Smart scheduler: This tool would allow students the ability to customize their academic future by adding future requirements to a degree roadmap and have the ability to see potential opportunities for overlap, study abroad, additional majors or minors. This smart scheduler would store the data and also improve academic advising by letting students create their own individual degree path and using academic advisors as a resource to review and consult on specific line-items, semesters, or opportunities. Tracking degree progress in a central database would put advisors on a more consistent track and log the direction the student would like to head for a more informed advising session. This idea is essential to improving our academic success rates, improving our academic advising, and giving students the tools necessary to be more in control of making informed scheduling decisions, seeing if a study abroad experience is feasible, and being able to more easily manage your degree progress at Miami.
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J-Term: Assist with the implementation of the J-term Miami is looking to implement in January of 2014 and making sure high impact experiences and course opportunities are available so that students can take full advantage of this 3-5 week term.
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Gathering student input using suggestions boxes, open community forums and an online web forum: Suggestion boxes will be convenient and placed all around campus for people to provide their input. In addition, we would hold open community forums or even focus groups to make sure we are really getting a gauge on what students are looking for. Lastly, we plan tocreate an online web forum in which any student, faculty, or member of ASG can log on and bring forth their ideas, solutions to issues, or responses to current legislation. Giving students as many channels as possible to directly communicate with student government will allow them to have an impact on their Miami experience.
- New CAC collaboration director: This person would be solely responsible for seeking out collaborations of other organizations to make everyone’s events larger and better attended. They will also be the contact person for organizations that are interested in collaborating with CAC. I feel that CAC hasn’t been as accessible to other organizations as it should be, so I hope to change that if elected to office.
Learn more about Wadsworth, Harrelson and Corporan by reading their Her Campus Profile. Visit the “Make It Your Miami” party website, Facebook and Twitter for more campaign information.
“Making ASG Work For You” Party
Candidates: John Stefanski (President), Lizzie Litzow (Vice President), and Jake Westfall (VP CAC)
Platform: We understand that Associated Student Government was created to make Miami better. Lizzie and I looked to our experiences as executive leaders in student organizations, greek life, and ASG to create a platform that was constructed primarily of practical, tangible solutions to everyday problems facing all Miami students. We know the importance of the legacy initiatives of past Student Body Presidents. That’s why we’ll work to boost Miami’s rankings, connect current students with alumni and continue the programs of Nick Huber and Heath Ingram to ensure that the Miami of today leads into a better Miami of tomorrow.
If elected, some of the goals this party hopes to accomplish are:
- Make substantial lobbying efforts with the administration to see the complete overhaul of Miami’s Academic Advising System.
- Fully implement the Student Advocacy Program Senator Lizzie Litzow pioneered.
- See a “Medical Amnesty Rule” be put in place for those living on campus
- Increase hours of dining halls for those living farther away from Bell Tower and Shriver
- Streamline the numerous websites students use on a daily basis (i.e. Niihka, MyMiami, Bannerweb, TheHub).
- Bring more events to campus that are of interest to the students. CAC works with student activity fees so students should have a say of where it goes. Getting feedback about campus events is the only way CAC can improve their events each year. Student surveys and polls need to be implemented into CAC’s procedure.
- See more collaboration between CAC other organizations. We need to foster an atmosphere that has open communication between all sections of this campusincluding: the Greek Community, the Non-Greek Community, the Athletic Department, DAC, ASG, RHA, and Miami’s Administration.
- Bring a NEW event to campus that will be a highlight of the year. Each of the 9 boards on CAC will combine funds to plan and organize a different portion of a festival. Other organizations can add into the festival with unique and interesting ideas that will add to the overall theme of the festival. The festival will be held in the fall to kick off the year.
Learn more about Stefanski, Litzow and Westfall by reading their Her Campus Profile. Visit the “Making ASG Work For You” party website, Facebook and Twitter for more campaign information.
“#Revolution” Party
Candidates: Colten Kidwell (President), Molly Kenney (Vice President) and Matt Turk (VP CAC)
Platform: This is how you start a revolution. It comes down to clear, big ideas with and a radically new approach. Colten and Molly didn’t just sit down and type up a platform. They didn’t google “university campaign rhetoric”. And they didn’t have the talking points of the ASG insiders. Instead, Colten and Molly developed a platform the old-fashion way—by talking to Miami students. This is a team of problem solvers, but you can’t find a solution to a problem until you identify the problem. Colten and Molly went straight to the students of Miami University to identify these needs. To further preface the platform, it’s important to realize that this is only a nine-month term. This is a team of realists, and they have developed a platform and strategy that that can be realistically accomplished is in this timeframe. As they built their platform, Colten and Molly decided to structure their plans around the past, the present, and the future.
Renew the Past: ASG has been successful in many ways over the past year. They have the ball rolling on several key issues. Colten and Molly respect what they’ve done and want to continue the work they’ve started.
Reviving the Present: Addressing issues that ASG isn’t currently addressing, yet could be solved within the nine-month term. There are a lot of small campus issues that tend to get overlooked year after year. Unfortunately, these smaller issues are what ASG can actually have a lot of influence on.
Reaching the Future: These goals may not come to full fruition in nine months because they are more long term in nature and require much more time and planning to develop properly.
If elected, some of the goals this party hopes to accomplish are:
- Revise the Miami Plan: The liberal arts education is very important, and needs to be preserved. However, the current system is broken. Furthermore, changes should be made that focus the Miami Plan on making students more employable and prepare them for life after Miami.
- Find solutions for our regional campuses: If you’ve been to any of the forums on the proposal for the regional campuses you are well aware of the hot debate. Right now there is a proposal set to transform the regional campuses into academic divisions. The experiences among the different campuses are not the same; therefore the diploma should not be the same. Although there should be a distinction between the main campus and the regional campuses, creating a random academic division doesn’t make sense.
- Complete peer advocacy program: The current administration is working on a great program to provide representation and counsel to students who receive code ones. This is an excellent idea that needs to come to fruition.
- One-credit hour seminar: Miami must assure the completion of a one credit hour seminar class that educates students on Miami University during their freshman year.
- Make all Miami students more employable: We must to work with Career Services and the various academic divisions to bring job opportunities to students in all the different academic fields. This will be a multi-prong approach of leveraging career services, enhancing our relations with alumni, and working within the Miami Plan to better prepare students for employment upon/after graduation.
- Improve Alumni Relations: One of the biggest areas in which Miami is failing in is alumni relations. Our endowment funds are lower than most other universities in Ohio. “Cold-calling” alumni and asking for donations is not the most effective way to build relationships with our alumni. We need to put students in face-to-face contact with alumni. The best way to build true relationships with alumni is to allow them to experience the unmatched caliber of our students first-hand. I will rebuild how we reach out to alumni and bring strong alumni support back to our University.
- Connect more with the city of Oxford: Colten’s heritage here in Oxford can be used to strengthen the relationship between the University and the city. As a member of the Oxford Chamber of Commerce, Colten is connected with all the local businesses and has already begun working to strengthen these ties.
- Hold larger events with more co-sponsors. This will hopefully be a result of Turk’s collaborative policies. Students will notice our foreign language advertisements, and an overall trend of creating a closer Miami community through campus activities.
Learn more about Kidwell, Kenney, and Turk by reading their Her Campus Profile. Visit the “#Revolution” party website, Facebook and Twitter (@asgREVOLUTION) for more campaign information.