1. How will you work to make good on your campaign promises even if you lose this race?
We will apply to re-join the Senate and continue to serve students through that venue. We will also continue our work in other student organizations and continue pursuing our campaign promises. Spencer's already started working on them and he sees no reason to stop if he doesn't win the election. Winning or losing an election is not what's important, it's serving the student that are important.
2. My question is, if this act was to come up for a vote in the US House or Senate, would the candidates support this legislation and lobby for it?
We believe that the NISG President and Vice President have a lot on their plate as it is. Whoever wins needs to focus their attention on the issues that most directly affect the students of UNI. We understand the importance of staying on top of national and local policies across a broad spectrum of topics, but we feel that it would be inappropriate for us to take a public stance on behalf of all students on some of those issues. However, if the student body came together in support of or opposition to this act, we would respond accordingly.
3.As the President and Vice-President are comparable to Ra's, just for the entire campus, how do the candidates propose to develop that sense of identity and community for the entirety of UNI.
As current RAs, we feel that we have the appropriate skills and knowledge and are the best suited to this task. In fact, a key component of our platform is that we want to foster a sense of community amongst the student body. We'd like to increase student attendance to events on campus through our Panther Points system. This system creates an incentive for students to get out of their room or house and take part in UNI traditions and events, enriching their experience here. We're also pushing for more weekend programs, giving students a reason to stay here on the weekend where they can meet new people and strengthen friendships. Besides our combined 4 years experience as RAs, another example of community building is seeing students rally behind the interlude dance, which was created for this very purpose - to give us a sense of identity and pride. For this contribution, Ian, along with fellow dance creators Scott Connerley and Tyler Wright, have just become the first students in UNI history to be honorary UNI athletic letter winners! They are receiving athletic letters and lettermen jackets during Saturday's basketball game against George Mason for "the initiative you took to create what is the first real athletic tradition owned by the UNI student-body" as stated by Troy Dannen, Athletic Director for UNI Athletics.
4. How would you get Senators to accurately represent their constituencies while they serve in NISG?
It's long been stated in the NISG By-laws that senators are required to attend either their dormitory Senate or their college's Dean's Advisory Council. However, many senators do not do this minimal requirement and the off-campus and at-large senators are held to no such standards. For starters, Spencer and Ian would check in with Deans and dormitory presidents to make sure that their senators are attending those meetings. For all of the other senators, we would require that they make some sort of weekly attempt to contact or meet with their constituents. Whether it be through a facebook page that they update weekly or by holding "office hours" somewhere on campus once a week where students can contact them. This is very similar to the President's Column that Spencer would write for the Northern Iowan and the Union-hours that both Spencer and Ian would have. In addition, we would make it clear that our suggestions box could be used to communicate with senators in addition to ourselves.
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