Editor's Note: Each UOSA Presidential candidate was asked to write a short column responding to the question: "How are you going to change OU? Not broad topics, but specifically, how are you going to achieve the goals you set in your platform with all the red tape and restrictions?”
UOSA has been plagued by negative headline after headline this year. UOSA is in a rough place: Students do not know what UOSA is, and if they do, they find it irrelevant. This is why we’re running for UOSA president and vice president. We want to make student government relevant again; we want to make it actually matter to students. We think the best way to do this is by creating feasible solutions to students’ everyday problems.
Our platform focuses on solutions to four main issues: advising, dead week, parking, and oZONE.
We want to move advising forward. Proper advising is vital to our college careers. If you are advised incorrectly, you could end up spending extra time and money that you never planned to spend. It’s common for students to change their majors, have a double major or have a minor, but the current system makes that excessively difficult. Zac and I want to make improvements to the advising programs on campus so these are no longer common problems. We want to create an advising evaluation online. Using this evaluation, we can point out what exactly needs to be improved at the various advising offices on campus.
We want to move dead week forward. Currently, the dead week policy is not being adhered to by all professors. We want to raise education about the current policy among students and professors to assure it is being followed. One way we will gauge this is by adding a question on end-of-term evaluations, asking whether or not the teacher followed the dead week policy. Study space is another concern of students during dead week. Zac and I want to open the library for 24 hours during dead week, as well as other buildings on campus such as Wagner, Dale and Sarkeys, so groups can have sufficient facilities to study.
We want to move parking forward. Parking garages are not a viable option cost wise and more flat lots would not suffice because they will only get further and further away. As an alternative, we want to improve our CART bus system to make parking for free at Lloyd Noble Center a viable option for students. We also want to increase the efficiency of the apartment loop and trolley system.
We want to move oZONE forward. Zac and I want to communicate student input to oZONE through a student action committee made of a variety of students.
We want to make UOSA, your student government and representation to the administration, work for you. We want to create a better experience for all students at OU. In the past, leaders have bitten off more than they could chew when trying to do this. We have the experience in UOSA to know better, and our track record shows we know how to get stuff done. That’s more of what UOSA needs and what OU students deserve — a chance to move us forward.
Click here to read UOSA presidential candidate Franz Zenteno's column
Click here to read UOSA presidential candidate Jess Eddy's column
Click here to read UOSA presidential candidate Nick Harrison's column
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SoonerDutch 2 years, 1 month ago
Anonymous character assassination is what I always look forward to this time of year...
soonerboomers 2 years, 1 month ago
Anybody but these two. If you want to perpetuate the disaster we already have in the student government, here is the ticket for that.
TrueOULove 2 years, 1 month ago
If I tell my name... I know that I won't get a UOSA position next year (not that I would want to, Zach takes credit for EVERYTHING that everyone else around/"below" him has ever done, and that would drive me nuts).
I've been in UOSA for quite a while. Ally Glavas was given $100 for a project (call the UOSA budget director and Ask what was originally allotted for the tail gate), and spent $600 (UOSA was forced to tap into side accounts for the funding). Not a good trait since our school is out of money..out of President's funds..having tuition hikes. Need proof of the -LACK- of fiscal responsibility?
---WHY do you think the library has already denied the request to open for thousands of dollars more? These ideas are great! if they were free! If they were free/plausible, they'd already be doing them.
But ZACH...is yet another reason why this ticket just can not win. He (in addition to blowing off all meetings and tasks) has a HUGE anger complex. Being kicked out of a TA's office hours for ANGER issues. Yelled at a UOSA member because he was given a TO-DO List, citing his "superiority"--mind you, he's a freshman that has no outside involvement other than being in a frat (which he favors...heavily...for any positions that he can).
On a side note: Katie Fox has turned her back on the people that worked the hardest for her. Ignoring the rumors about her, this act has made me lose ALL respect for her. Endorsing a candidate is strictly forbidden in CAC, I'm betting that it is for UOSA is as well....
I know that myself and several others- despite our love for UOSA, will be forced to quit if this ticket is allowed to win. Simply because the torture of working with these two, controlling, credit stealing, rude people---would make UOSA an obligation. Although, we wouldn't get positions :P because we didn't support them and they are NOT forgiving.
crimethink 2 years, 1 month ago
I'm sad that I have more to say about the comments than what Ally actually wrote (which was sincere and well balanced among all of the platform issues), but I figure that this campaign has had that feeling all along. No one listens to anyone anymore, so the campaign turns into weird character mud slinging.
Anyways, I take issue with this statement first:
"Ally Glavas was given $100 for a project (call the UOSA budget director and Ask what was originally allotted for the tail gate), and spent $600 (UOSA was forced to tap into side accounts for the funding). Not a good trait since our school is out of money..out of President's funds..having tuition hikes. Need proof of the -LACK- of fiscal responsibility?"
Your statement is false or misleading for many reasons. Yes, the tailgate was given $100 originally, but that was because it needed to be tried one time before continuing the event and also because the budget for Executive Branch was so terrible the year before Katie took office that the Executive Branch only received $1,500 total for the whole year. When Katie took office, she had to scramble to make ends meet by tapping into the Executive Branch contingency fund which is standard protocol when money is tight. Then Katie was able to secure additional funding through the subsidiary budget process because Congress was forgiving of the mistakes of the administration before Katie. Further, in contrast to most University funds, the Student Activity Fee Fund is projected to grow for the next fiscal year because we will have a larger freshman class and more people returning to school. This will allow student government to pick up some of the slack in funding for certain things such as student organizations. Student government is not broke, so it is our intention to help students even more during this time when the University sometimes cannot do as much as it used to.
Anonymous character smearing is not an admirable trait either.