Candidates and audience members alike expressed disappointment with the format and attendance of Thursday’s ASUO Q&A Session, but the event went ahead on civil terms.
The event, held in Lillis 282, allowed the elections board to pose questions to the 10 students running for ASUO president and vice president. However, candidates said they were disappointed the audience could not ask questions.
ASUO Elections Coordinator Aaron Tuttle said students would get the chance to question candidates directly during the April 7 Executive Candidate Debate. The format of Thursday’s session, he said, provided more effective moderation.
The audience, candidates noted before the discussion, was largely composed of students wearing slate colors and affiliated with campaigns and ASUO organizations.
“In this room, I see faulty leadership coming from the ASUO, if not just a faulty institution itself,” presidential candidate Ryan McCarrel said.
McCarrel and his running mate, junior Ian Baldwin, called for a radical redesign of the ASUO bureaucracy that would move student government to DuckWeb, allowing students to vote on the allocation of their incidental fees.McCarrel’s rivals agreed on the importance of involving students from outside the ASUO. “We all want to involve more students,” vice presidential candidate Lidiana Soto said. “I don’t think anyone here can argue against that, but I don’t think there was enough communication to get folks here.”
However, Soto and others offered more moderate solutions to the issue and more optimistic assessments of the current government. “We can’t change apathy and all this stuff in one year,” vice presidential candidate Nick Gower said. “It’s not possible. So let’s work in the long term.”
Tuttle also asked the candidates to grapple with the issues of specific groups on the University campus – perceptions of Greek houses, the effect of building Matthew Knight Arena near residence halls, and how to reach out to marginalized and underrepresented groups. All candidates responded by emphasizing the need to give students the tools to excel academically.
In the end, audience members did get a chance to ask the candidates one question. After the end of the question and answer period, executive candidates implored Tuttle to allow them to answer Senate candidate Robert Green when he asked about their backgrounds.
Other than that, audience participation was limited to interjections and voting on four polling questions posed by the elections board, asking about the outcome of the election, the performance of student government this year and the Emerald’s coverage of the election.
Despite the audience’s concerns, Thursday’s session was cordial and followed by good-humored conversation among candidates, even those who oppose one another in the election. Presidential candidate Michelle Haley said the campaign brings out the best in student government.
“If we had a quarter of the campaign spirit during the rest of the year, we could do amazing things,” Haley said.
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