Six slates fight for spots on SGB

Pitt students will find themselves returning to the polls Nov. 20 to vote, not for state or… Pitt students will find themselves returning to the polls Nov. 20 to vote, not for state or federal representatives but for members of the Student Government Board. Fourteen students representing six slates ‘mdash; Integrity, One Passion One Pride, One Vision One Voice, Revolution, Students Always and Students First ‘mdash; are campaigning for the chance to sit on SGB. Each suggests different ways to improve campus life. Integrity Integrity, the last slate to enter the SGB race, consists of Ada Noh and Whitney Wilson. They’ve nominated Justin Romeo for president. Noh, a sophomore majoring in neuroscience with a minor in public service, said the name ‘Integrity’ represents a promise from the slate to students that they ‘will do their best to be steadfast and true.’ ‘A lot of times, SGB members are not held accountable for their promises, and that is something Integrity wants to change,’ said Noh. ‘We want to have [the] integrity within ourselves to be fair and objective when dealing with student issues.’ Noh said that, if elected, she hopes to change the residence halls’ guest sign-in system so that students will be able to swipe friends into their dorms, instead of having to write their names down on a sheet of paper. This, she said, will reduce the amount of time people spend waiting in line to sign guests in and out of dorms. Noh said she’d also like to improve SafeRider by adding more vehicles or improving the current pickup routes. But her most important goal, she said, is to increase the number of study areas on campus, specifically by adding more tables and reopening locked individual study rooms on the third and fourth floors of the Hillman Library. ‘I just think it’s logical for the largest library on Pitt’s campus to have ample space for students to be able to study,’ said Noh. ‘It’s a common frustration of mine to walk around the library for 20 minutes or so trying to find a table, and I am sure many other students feel the same way.’ Noh served as a freshman peer counselor at Pitt last summer. She is now a Pathfinder and a member of various student organizations, including the Asian Students Alliance and Best Buddies. She said she thinks she could represent students effectively because she can relate to them. ‘I am a pretty average person, and I feel like I can represent the student body well,’ she said. ‘I love the University of Pittsburgh, but I do believe that there are certain things that will make it a better place for all students.’ Wilson, a junior majoring in rehabilitation science and pre-physical therapy, said in an e-mail that she hopes to increase the amount of organic, healthy foods in on-campus dining, to improve Pitt’s fitness centers and to increase the hours of operation for Student Health Services and the fitness centers. She is a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, Pitt Dance Marathon and Pitt Ski and Snowboard Club. One Passion One Pride The candidates for One Passion One Pride are Andrew Freeman, Max Greenwald and Alexa Jennings. Freeman, a junior majoring in electrical engineering and economics with a minor in industrial engineering, said he plans to create and enforce a paperless system for financial aid and admissions, install a Transit Visual System that would allow students to ‘access a virtual map of the campus and to see shuttles in real time’ and improve Blackboard by making it easier for students and professors to correspond over the Internet. ‘We all can greatly benefit from the technology that is available to us,’ said Freeman. ‘But we have to utilize that technology and our resources to ultimately reduce costs, impact the environment [and] increase the safety of students.’ Freeman, the president and programs chair of the National Society of Black Engineers and a mentor for PITT EXCEL, said his paperless program, called the Paperless Pitt Initiative, would reduce the amount of paper faculty and students use. ‘Students are allowed 36 million pages for printout each year, and faculty and staff have an unlimited quota as well,’ he said. ‘If we could turn everything into an electronic system, we could definitely reduce waste and save costs. We could also reduce the amount of paper used by applicants and eliminate the financial aid letters sent in the mail, too.’ Freeman added that he wanted to propose initiatives that can last. ‘I want to put forth initiatives that will remain and affect students positively for a long time to come.’ Greenwald, a junior majoring in politics and philosophy in the Honors College and English writing, said he hopes to pass initiatives that will have a positive effect on the environment. He said he hopes to improve the recycling program, increase awareness about and possibly make free Pitt’s bike rental system and to increase ‘green space’ to ‘beautify the campus.’ He said also said he wants to put a renewed emphasis on Pitt traditions, possibly by creating new ones. ‘I have great pride in Pitt, and I love this school,’ said Greenwald. ‘I plan to carry that pride with me and to pass it along to students. I would like to see an overarching unity among Pitt students, and hopefully our thoughts and ideas can help unite us.’ Jennings, a sophomore majoring in marketing and management, said she wants to install visible shuttle stop signs to increase efficiency and safety of the shuttle system. These goals, when combined with Freeman’s and Greenwald’s, contribute to the theme of One Passion One Pride, the drive to ‘tackle initiatives that affect Pitt students’ daily lives,’ said Jennings. Greenwald and Jennings, both members of the Blue and Gold Society, met Freeman through mutual friends. Jennings said they realized they all ‘shared a passion for making a difference at Pitt.’ Greenwald agreed. ‘We all come from different backgrounds and are members over very different organizations, but we share a common link,’ he said. ‘All of our goals are different but linked through focus on the environment and safety, and I think that shows that we’re willing to work together.’ One Vision One Voice Kevin Morrison, the current SGB allocations committee chair, Lance Bonner and Kate Marchetti form One Vision One Voice. According to their Web site, www.onevisiononevoice.com, the slate ‘will seek to create an environment conducive to the expression of student voices on campus by amplifying the ideas and concerns of Pitt students to University administration and local government representatives.’ Bonner, a junior majoring in politics and philosophy and economics, said the slate name focuses mainly on Morrison’s presidential platform of creating a ‘local student lobbying group to voice the concerns of students.’ The name also represents the idea of having all students and faculty united to make Pitt better, he said. Bonner, the president of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and a current SGB allocations committee member, said he plans to revise questions on teacher surveys and make the information from these surveys available to Pitt students. He also said he’d provide more resources for student organizations and raise funds for student allocations by creating a DVD-player rental system through Redbox, a DVD rental company. Marchetti, a sophomore majoring in political science with a dance minor, said she wants to create a housing committee to represent students, make sure on-campus housing deadlines give students enough time to look into off-campus housing and expand the Outside the Classroom Curriculum to give students the option of earning certificates through the program. Bonner said that, if elected, he’d like to see a visible increase in communication between SGB and students. ‘I would like undergraduate students to look to student government as a place of empowerment and change, not as a hurdle for organizations to get funding,’ said Bonner. ‘There’s recently been some expression of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with Student Government Board. Through communication I believe I, with Kevin and Kate, can help SGB have a much better relationship with every undergraduate student at the university.’ Revolution Revolution consists of presidential candidate Dan Gore and board member candidates Joseph Rendemonti and Alicia Simpson. Rendemonti, a junior majoring in engineering and economics with a certificate in nuclear engineering, plans to make the residence sign-in systems electronic, to make it mandatory for the University to clean residence hall bathrooms on the weekends and to reinstate the lobbying capacity of SGB. ‘Some of the others running want to create a lobbying committee,’ said Rendemonti, ‘but SGB already has the ability to lobby for students. That’s the main purpose of SGB, to fight for the student body.’ Simpson, a junior majoring in political science, history and English literature, wants to update the transportation services to improve efficiency, as well as collaborate with Rendemonti on the guest sign-in system and the restoration of lobbying to SGB.’ ‘ ‘ The three juniors met when they were freshmen and have remained friends over the past three years, a quality that Simpson said sets them apart from the other slates. ‘We all met separately, not through organizations,’ she said. ‘We didn’t get together just to run for SGB. We’re all heavily involved on campus, and we saw problems that we want to fix. I think that says a lot about our slate.’ Rendemonti said one of the slate’s strengths is that each of its members thinks differently. ‘We’re very opinionated and don’t always agree,’ said Rendemonti. ‘But we work well together, and I think that’s an important quality to have.’ Rendemonti and Simpson both said the name ‘Revolution’ represents the need for a complete turnaround for SGB, a change their slate is ready to take on. ‘We wanted to get away from airy words. We wanted something new and different from the status quo,’ said Rendemonti. ‘We want to return SGB to its truest form, and I think our name conveys that.’ Students Always Board member candidates Jonathan Adams, Katlyn Jennings and Daniel Tully form the slate Students Always. The three said that, if elected, they plan to make Pitt life easier and more meaningful by making students the priority of SGB. Adams, a sophomore majoring in mathematics and the current SGB academic affairs committee chair, said he wants to ‘advocate on behalf of all students’ by creating a scholarship fund, update PittPortal and Courseweb to make them more ‘user-friendly and appealing’ and market OCC to upperclassmen by giving OCC credit to more student organizations. He said he would like to continue the work he started on the academic affairs committee, too. ‘I always want the students to be the focus and center of all the decisions made,’ he said. ‘They are first and foremost my main concern if I am elected.’ Tully, a sophomore majoring in political science and business and the current advocacy chairman for the Resident Students Association, said he wants to review the allocations process, propose an optional laundry fee at the beginning of each semester to eliminate the use of quarters and the unnecessary loss of PantherFunds, and to reestablish accountability and accessibility in SGB. ‘I think that SGB should be going out to students and actually listening to what they have to say,’ said Tully. ‘We shouldn’t have to have students come to us all the time.’ He added that their slate name fully represents their ideas for SGB. ‘It’s a very effective name, and it’s not a copout,’ he said. ‘Board members who ran under it before have gotten a lot of things accomplished. It completely fits with what I and my slate want to do.’ Adams agreed. ‘This name represents what our central focus is: students,’ he said. ‘My slate brings a lot of different opinions to the table, but that’s good. We can get more accomplished and can cover more ground.’ Students First Students First consists of current board member and presidential candidate Amanda Reed, current board member Nila Devanath and Charlie Shull. According to the slate’s description on Facebook, ‘Students First’ will work to ‘end usual divisions in the SGB and on campus so that all students, including those traditionally ignored, are given a seat at the table.’ Devanath, a junior majoring in neuroscience, psychology and sociology with a minor in chemistry and an Asian studies certificate, said she chose to run again to make SGB to be more accessible to students and to complete the work she has already started. ‘SGB is a mystery to a lot of students,’ said Devanath. ‘Some students don’t even know what SGB is or who the board members are, and as a board member, that really bothers me.’ Devanath said she hopes to finish her work with SafeRider and the new exam policy, which would allow students to reschedule their back-to-back finals. She said she wants to work with the University Registrar to abolish a policy that prohibits student organizations from reserving rooms in buildings where classes are regularly held, too. According to their group description on Facebook, Shull, a junior majoring in politics and philosophy, plans to add an online forum to my.pitt.edu that will enable students to communicate more easily and give SGB feedback on issues being addressed. According to the site, he would also like to eliminate rental fees for space available for students on campus. Devanath said she and her slatemates ultimately want to represent the students and make them first in all decisions. ‘We want to change the culture of SGB and the University to be more responsive to students and make sure they are the foremost consideration in SGB and administrative decisions,’ she said.