"Students don't know that student government exists on college campuses," said Jordan Young, presidential candidate for the College Avenue Campus Council. This statement - whether true or false - may interest many students on our campus today. Along with the merger of schools on the New Brunswick campuses, college governing associations will be combined as well. So who will represent you?
The Rutgers University Student Assembly's presidential candidates held a debate regarding the upcoming election this past Thursday in the Raritan River Lounge.
The debate covered a variety of topics ranging from the candidate's goals, and future plans for their presidency. Each candidate gave his opinion and ideas and goals for next year.
Brian Spatocco, a Rutgers School of Engineering junior - running for president of the Engineering Governing Council - said the role of the president, "besides being a fantastic target or a scapegoat for media," is "to act as the brain of the organization."
Spatocco added that "the president steers the ship, and however he/she does not actually move it single handedly."
He also said "the president works to protect and ensure the vitality of student government and university," and "without student government, we're all out of a job."
Michael Convente, a Rutgers College sophomore, is currently a Class of 2009 representative running for president of Busch Campus Council. He said "the primary goals of campus council should be to act positively on behalf of its constituents." Convente also said a few ways to accomplish this is listen to its constituents and help with organizational funding.
Rutgers College junior Dymir F. Arthur - who is running for president of the College Avenue Council - had some ideas of his own.
He said some of his plans were "to express and address the concerns for students who live on College Ave."
Arthur said he wants all the organizations on the College Avenue campus to have a voice, a seat at the table.
Nkosi Remy, currently a member of the Rutgers football team and vice president of the University College Governing Association, is running for president of the University College Council. Remy said he was concerned as "Rutgers was hit very hard this year with money."
"I know each of you felt it, I felt it, there were classes that were cut," Remy said. "I am very concerned about the 600 classes that were cut, students taking exams on the floor - these are things that I want to rally for in Trenton."
As for long term goals, he said the University's environment changes every year, and he will set goals accordingly.
Young stressed that the role of student government really has to change.
"Start to engage the students, reach out to them, let them know what's going on," Young said.
He said he was the only candidate that is running for College Avenue Council who lives on College Ave.
"I think it is important that students actually live on the College campus that you are actually trying to represent," Young said.
Young also asked how the governing associations are representing a constituency that does not know it exists.
"I hear stories about sexual assault on College Ave, I hear stories about telephones not working in a building, and they don't know that there is this organization out there that will work with them, they don't know it exists," he said.
Arthur said the first issue he would like to address is the relationship between students, representatives and the actual student body - a topic that almost all candidates want to tackle.
Arthur would like better safety for the campus and he wants to create 24-hour study space.
"Those are two of the issues that students are really concerned about, those are the topics that have been coming in conversations that I have been having," he said.
Arthur also said he would like to continue lobbying for higher education.
Spatocco said he wants to address the problem of preferential housing.
"Too many engineers got screwed with housing," he said. "And that's ridiculous. That will be aggressively addressed next year. As far as the administration, something is going to be corrected before it goes and ruins other college students' experience."
Spatocco said he wants to provide a voice for the engineers which he believes has been silenced.
"It's about time we get the respect that we deserve at the School Of Engineering," he said. "For too long our concerns have fallen upon deaf ears on a liberal arts based administration, and thus for too long we have been mitigated, marginalized, and misappropriated by administration and their decisions."
He wants to ensure that work done in research is recognized by the administration.
"Although we do not make the majority, we do make the majority of academically gifted students that make here at the University," Spatocco said.
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