The fall 2022 Student Government Association elections for president and vice president opened Tuesday and will close on Wednesday at 9 p.m.
OU students can cast their votes on ENGAGE using their OU 4x4 and password. They can also vote for other SGA representatives.
On one side of the ballot is presidential candidate Christopher Firch, finance and accounting junior, and his running mate Emelie Schultz, business management and psychology sophomore.
Firch and Schultz are running for president and vice president with hopes of empowering OU students, they said. At the base of their campaign is FAR: foster the OU family; amplify diversity, equity and inclusion; and represent student concerns. Using these principles, Firch and Schultz said they want to foster a strong, open community for both current and future students.
During the presidential and vice presidential candidate forum, Firch said he plans to restart the Campus Climate Advisory Board to have monthly meetings with student organizations.
The candidates also want to make SGA more accessible and approachable, Firch and Schultz said in an interview with the OU Daily. They hope to accomplish this by improving and updating the ENGAGE system for students to be more educated and involved with student organizations. To increase involvement and ease the transition to college, Firch and Schultz want to create a survey that would curate the top-ten best-suited organizations for first-year students.
The pair also hopes to address food scarcity and mental health issues in the OU community. Firch and Schultz are currently collaborating with the OU Food Pantry and Goddard Health Center to ensure students’ needs are met and are planning to create a mental health task force for students, they said during the forum.
On the other side of the ballot are presidential candidate Carson Poupore, an economics, political science and business management junior, and vice presidential candidate Beth Felkner, an economics and letters junior.
Poupore and Felkner's campaign platform is called WILL: working, informing, learning and listening.
“(WILL is) designed to identify tangible problems and provide tangible solutions,” Felkner said during an interview with OU Daily. “We believe at least one platform point, or more, will benefit every single student on campus. This is our will to you, and it’s encapsulated in our WILL platform.”
Using these pillars, Poupore and Felkner hope to improve campus safety, increase accessibility on campus for students with disabilities, and advocate for the rights of student workers, they said during an interview with the OU Daily.
Some of their campaign highlights include increasing wages for on-campus student employees, reopening closed restaurants, updating OU SafeRIDE, implementing a meal swipe donation program and creating a graduate liaison position in the executive branch.
In an effort to uphold the last pillar in WILL, listening, Poupore said during the forum that he wants to promote an existing student concern box so students can use it to reach out to SGA. The candidates said they will also collaborate with student organizations to help them reach their goals and intend to promote equity initiatives.
During the forum, Felkner said they have been able to build relationships with OU administration, connections that they will use to ask for students' needs, if elected. They said they want to be the voice for students and will fight for student workers.
The OU Daily will monitor election results and publish them when available.
