First-year Representative fall elections began Monday with a wealth of candidates sharing common goals battling for four open council seats, one Student Services Finance Committee seat and one for the College of Engineering.
This year’s Associated Students of Madison fall elections revolve around key issues that will significantly affect the student population in coming years, according to ASM Press Office Director Ade Afolayan.
Student candidates were asked to discuss views on issues including communication between council and students, lowering tuition, increasing financial aid and how to make campus more environmentally sustainable, Afolayan said.
Afolayan added that while these freshmen candidates may lack the background knowledge and experience of someone who has been on campus longer, their involvement is essential to the university’s future.
“[These candidates are] eager students [and] excited to get involved,” she said.
Megan Dexter, a candidate for the First-Year Representative seat from the College of Letters and Science, said communication is her main focus should she be elected to council.
“If I am elected my biggest goal is to increase communication across campus. If departments and organizations were able to collaborate easier, there could be more success behind campus events,” she said.
Many other candidates expressed similar views in addition to the need for more awareness of the need to make tuition more affordable to all students.
Concerned with the lowering of tuition costs, candidate Ronald Rolland is a freshman student in the College of Engineering running for both a Student Services Finance Committee seat and to be the representative in student council for the College of Engineering.
His position in the year’s elections regards the allocation of segregated fees with a goal of lowering segregated fees by giving SSFC more control over the allocation budget, he said.
“I feel segregated fees are too high. Therefore, I am running for [SSFC Representative] to make them more affordable for students,” Rolland said.
There are a total of 24 candidates for the five open First-Year Representative seats, four candidates for the one open Student Services Finance Committee seat and two candidates for the seat of College of Engineering Representative, according to the matrix.
In last year’s fall elections 15 students ran for four First-Year Representative seats and another 15 campaigned for two SSFC seats with four candidates for the College of Engineering seat, according to Afolayan.
The referendums on this year’s ballot are the Memorial Union Renovation and Article X, Section I of the ASM Constitution.
The Memorial Union Renovation referendum asks students’ opinion on the current design of the student/theater lounge to be added to Memorial Union, according to the ASM website.
Article X opts to change the number of justices on the Student Judiciary, the website said, and proposes reducing the number of justices to seven instead of eight in an effort to make voting more efficient for the government branch.
Elections began online Monday, Oct. 17, at 8:00 a.m. and continue until Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 5:00 p.m.
Afolayan added that there would be a press conference to announce preliminary election results held by the Student Election Commission at 9:00 p.m. in the Caucus Room of the Student Activity Center on Wednesday.
