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| Johnson, Linville aim platform to
get ‘back to students’ |
Carrie Baker
Business Affairs Beat |
Jacque Lenz | The Appalachian(l-r) SGA presidential and vice
presidential hopefuls Rachel A. Johnson and Lauren N. Linville.
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During a time of student fee increases
and controversial internal bickering in the Student Government Association,
presidential candidate Rachel A. Johnson and vice-presidential candidate
Lauren N. Linville want to get “back to students.”
“We want to make sure SGA is working towards student needs,”
Johnson, a psychology and German studies major from Niagara Falls,
N.Y., said Tuesday.
Johnson said accomplishing this goal will require extra effort from
senators by reaching out to their constituents.
“The main thing is making sure the senators are getting out
there,” Johnson said.
Johnson said once the senators are reaching their constituencies,
students will become more actively involved in SGA.
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“One
thing that we are going to do differently is make sure that people
are going to every one of their constituencies and make sure they
are going to all the meetings and make sure they’re going to
their office hours, and we’re going to kick out people that
aren’t,” Johnson said.
Johnson said her personal favorite goals on the
platform are the “SGA Internal Improvement” goals.
“I really believe that if you start from
the inside and do a complete makeover from the inside out it will
be very obvious and very beneficial,” Johnson said.
Among these goals are creating off-campus forums
to discuss issues, an “Adopt-A-Senator program,” a new
comments section for the SGA Web site, an “ad hoc committee
to evaluate and adapt the SGA Constitution and Bylaws” and
improvement of internal SGA relationships.
Johnson said she hopes making the senators a
“closer-knit group” will improve the productivity of the
senate.
“They’ve tried to turn it around this
year,” Linville, junior political science major from Winston-Salem
said Tuesday. “But it takes a long time to turn an organization
around where people get along.”
Johnson said internal bickering in the organization
has been a problem this year and one she hopes to resolve next year
by shifting the focus of SGA back to students.
“A lot of the senators just have not been
getting along this year. I feel it’s really very political
almost. And to me that’s very upsetting because I’m not
a politician. I don’t ever want to be a politician,” Johnson
said.
“I’d like to see the senate pull together
a lot more so that they’re all working toward common goals,
working for the students specifically,” Johnson said.
Safety issues also top Johnson and Linville’s
campaign platform.
“There’s ways the university can work
with us very simply to make it a safer campus to walk around at
night for everyone,” Johnson said.
Ensuring student safety around construction sites,
increasing crosswalk safety and evaluating the effectiveness of
the Mountaineer Escort service are among platform priorities.
“We’re really concerned with making
sure the Mountaineer Escort is actually doing what it’s meant
to be for,” Johnson said.
Construction site safety for students is a big
issue for Linville.
“I’d like to work on cleaning up construction
areas. I worry about somebody being hit by one of the large trucks.
They do pay attention, but you can never be too careful about things,”
Linville said.
“The safety around the construction sites
is really important because right now there’s gravel everywhere,
it’s muddy, it’s slippery and there’s not enough
lighting. You add all those together and it’s not the safest
place to walk even in the daytime,” Johnson said.
Johnson and Linville said they hope to alleviate
this problem by lobbying to keep detour pathways clear and well
marked, protect handicap accessibility and making lighting a priority.
Creating a Web site covering construction sites
and showing progress reports, what the project is and available
detours is one of Johnson and Linville’s plans to help students
cope with campus construction.
“We want to make it so people will be able
to click on it and say, ‘Oh, that’s what that big brick
thing is going to be,’” Johnson said.
Johnson and Linville said they admit that only
one-fourth of their platform are goals that are more immediate due
to their lengthy list of goals.
Some goals, such as providing better AppalCART
shelters, may be less feasible due to a lack of fees.
Johnson and Linville said these type of goals
are still important to students’ needs.
“If you don’t have goals that are going
to bring you forward in the future when there is the funding available,
then people might forget that later,” Johnson said.
Linville said she and Johnson will work toward
these larger goals, beginning work to be continued in the following
years.
“You have to shoot for large projects if
you want them to get done and you just need to start ahead of time
and let the next people continue your fight if you don’t achieve
it,” Linville said.
Other concerns on Johnson and Linville’s
platform include environmental concerns, sexual assault awareness,
and continuing and increasing diversity.
Johnson and Linville also hope to improve problems
they see with the university.
“I think one of the problems this year has
been not so much the administration as everyone together, the entire
senate and the administration,” Johnson said.
Johnson said increased communication between
the two parties might aid student voice on campus.
“The students do have a voice and the students
can get things accomplished,” Johnson said.
Linville said immediate action on student interest
issues and finding varying ways to accomplish goals will be important
for student voice to be effective.
“It’s important to look at the different
ways to approach it,” Linville said.
“What I would like to see is immediately
action the minute the problem starts,” Johnson said. |
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