Candidates for Student Association president, vice president and comptroller debated the role of SA on Monday night.

The debate, moderated by SA’s Board of Elections and Membership Chair Sophia Faram, consisted of a mix of questions from the live audience and those submitted via Twitter.

Presidential candidates debated SA’s role as either an advocacy group or as a student government association in Huntington Beard Crouse’s Gifford Auditorium.

Presidential candidate Jalen Nash said, as student leaders, they must control emotions when interacting with administration and trying to make change.

“Typically, when we become too emotionally driven, we can make it hard for administration to want to work with us,” said Raymond Perez, the vice presidential candidate running with Nash.

Vice presidential candidate Kailee Vick said although it is important to negotiate with administration and not act fully out of emotion, the main goal should be acting in the best interest of the student body.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that our role as SA representatives, SA president and vice president, would not be to cater to administration,” Vick said. “It would be to cater to students.”

Presidential candidate Ryan Golden, Vick’s running mate, said he wants to ensure SU’s administration does not dictate the conversation when student organizations approach them with issues. He added it is important for SA to show that it cares about student issues when the university does not.

“You can definitely advocate and lead at the same time,” said Golden. “We were asked to lead the Student Association and to advocate for them, and to advocate for every student. I would rather have the university angry at me than the student body.”

In response, Nash said that although advocacy is important, the role of SA president and vice president is to lead the organization. Responding emotionally may not be beneficial for leadership, he said.

Presidential candidate Mackenzie Mertikas said an issue with SA’s role as a governing body is that students can be unaware that the organization writes legislation and passes bills. She said her and vice presidential candidate Sameeha Saied’s campaign wants to focus on what students want to see changed.

“It’s not about us, it’s about you guys,” Mertikas said. “So really, for us, it is an advocacy group. And making sure that we’re taking all the feedback and ideas, all of the things we’re hearing from students and making sure that we’re pushing that forward.”

The candidates also debated the inclusion of SUNY- ESF students in Syracuse University organizations that are available to them, such as the LGBT Resource Center and the Counseling Center, which Mertikas said ESF students did not feel comfortable using.

Nash said he would reach out to ESF students and student leaders to build lasting relationships that would improve communication between SU and ESF students.

They also discussed improving international student life on campus. Saied said their campaign plans to increase funding for offices that would improve the experience of marginalized communities at SU.

Comptroller debate

Stacy Omosa and Eduardo Gomez, the two candidates for comptroller, debated how their individual skills would allow them to do the job well. Omosa said her experiences working for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund give her a strong financial background to bring to the position.

Gomez said he interned at a hedge fund and held multiple leadership roles, including the president of the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations at SU. Both candidates served on the finance board of SA this year.

The two agreed that the current system of favoring some organizations over others in terms of funding needs to end, and that all organizations should be treated fairly.

Omosa said, if the finance board were to consider the budget for another organization she is involved in, she would not participate in the discussion. She said she would trust the rest of the board to make an unbiased decision.

In the same scenario, Gomez said he would act as a member of the finance board and work to distribute funds equally.

SA elections will take place April 8 to 11 on MySlice.

DISCLAIMER: Jalen Nash is an assistant copy editor in The Daily Orange’s features department. He does not cover Student Association, report for or edit with The D.O.’s news staff.

Published on April 2, 2019 at 12:39 am

Contact Hannah: hagraf@syr.edu