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| Student needs in mind to fill docket
for Cash, Bayard |
Bethel Barefoot
Associate Editor |
Jacque Lenz | The Appalachian (l-r) Patrick G. Cash and H.
Dustin Bayard, SGA presidential and vice presidential candidates.
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The individual struggles
of every Appalachian State University student hold an important
place on the platform of Student Government Association presidential
and vice-presidential candidates Patrick G. Cash and H. Dustin Bayard.
“We must be as inclusive as possible, rather
than exclusive. The more we include others, the stronger the voice
will be,” senior English major Cash said Monday.
This idea of inclusiveness was instrumental for
Cash and Bayard as they constructed their platform.
“Instead of setting out our own platform
and forcing people to conform to our own platform, we want to set
up an environment where students are seeking what they want,”
Cash said.
To aid this venture and get students involved
on campus, Cash and Bayard intend to publish a student-run think
tank publication. |
The goal of
the publication is to outline an issue and then provide an outlet
for action, Cash said.
The publication, however, will not simply contain
what Cash and Bayard consider important.
“We’re going to talk to as many clubs
and organizations as we can,” senior political science major
Bayard said Monday. “We can’t make the students get involved.
We just have to provide the environment they would want to get involved
in.”
The running mates promise to fight for the protection
of every student’s rights in an effort to create a comfortable
environment for student involvement.
Plans include forming a Police/Judicial/Traffic
Affairs Committee within SGA, which will defend the rights of students
involved in issues connected to these departments, according to
the platform.
Cash-Bayard also intends to investigate grievances
students have with these departments.
“Right now when something happens to a student
and it involves police, judicial or traffic affairs, the students
have no where to go … except their fellow students,” Bayard
said. “We like this discussion, [which] is valuable, but we
want to take the student’s discussion … and turn it into
something creative.”
Cash and Bayard intend to protect the rights
of resident assistants (RA) by protecting the position from undue
punishment.
“RAs shouldn’t be fired because of
hearsay,” Cash said.
Termination of employment should only come by
a vote of peers, according to the platform.
“We’d like to provide more comfort
for RAs here so they’ll be encouraged to speak out and not
be as paranoid in engaging in daily activities,” Bayard said.
Cash and Bayard want to benefit students, but
also to encourage students to help the local community.
They plan to put together an alphabetical guide
listing commodities and locally owned businesses in order to inform
students of places they can purchase these items and help the local
economy, Bayard said.
“We’re 13,000 students that bring money
and invest it into the local economy. So if we start doing so where
[our money] is going to more local people rather than to more companies
… then the local community will start to embrace us more,”
Bayard said.
Along with the local community, Cash and Bayard
said they want to defend the natural environment, including reducing
the use of recyclable and non-recyclable materials by changing the
procurement practices of the university.
“We can stipulate that we want recyclable
materials only, for example,” Bayard said. However, cost effective
substitutes, which are becoming readily available, must be found.
There can be problems creating interest among the administration
for these items.
“People in the administration are capitalists,”
Bayard said. “You have to make it economically appealing for
them to do anything.”
The Cash-Bayard platform also contains the goal
of providing a more open environment concerning the reality of sexual
assault on campus.
Women who have been sexually assaulted have been
deterred from going to the police, the Counseling Center or Health
Services by people from within those organizations, Bayard said.
“ASU wants to keep the numbers down in order
to appear safe. But it’s not as safe as we all think,”
Cash said.
Cash and Bayard want to start an initiative to
implement the recommendations stipulated in the rape study published
last year by the Committee for Integrity at Appalachian (CIA), such
as lobbying state representatives for free legal counsel for rape
victims and permitting all students to carry non-lethal deterrent
devices, such as mace.
Creating the safe and comfortable environment
envisioned in their platform will require a strong utilization of
what Cash and Bayard feel is the most important and effective part
of SGA: the senate.
“Senators are seeking their constituents’
interests because on an everyday level, senators have much more
interaction with their constituents than the president … You
have to use the system that’s in place,” Cash said.
Fulfilling platform goals will also require the
effective articulation of student voice by Cash and Bayard to the
university’s administration.
“[We must set] up a working dialogue with
the administration,” Cash said. “Kill them with courtesy,
be redundant, follow up, articulate every issue, lay it out at the
beginning.” |
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