In a blog post earlier today, Walrath-Goldsmith followed Greenway-Beaves lead with a platform update. Here's my breakdown:
Senate Transparency
Wonderful plan. Back in 2008, I was elected as a Senator for my first time. In those days, Senate didn't have an official attendance policy and it was at the (unenforced) whim of the Speaker. I set out to change that. In the course of a few months, we removed a handful of Senators from office. Guess what happened? Senators started coming to meetings. It's about time Senators were called out on their other responsibilities.
Greek
Pandering.
Contract Breaks
Will not happen. Ever.
Greek Clusters
It might be a decent idea. It'll also probably never happen. The Greek Community has worked on this since before my time.
Greek Directors
You'll have them approved by IFC? Whose cabinet is this? I don't like the precedent it establishes.
Meals
Alright, I like this one.
GLBTQ Center
I'm curious to hear about funding for this. In addition, as the founder of One Iowa at UNI, I'm disappointed that Walrath-Goldsmith have decided to pick and choose between the LGBT groups to include in this conversation.
Reducing Plastic
I had the same conversation with the DoR when I ran. These are all really good ideas -- it will just be a matter of getting students to buy-in to it. It's certainly worth the effort. Walrath has shown a dedication to green issues and, if anyone can pull it off, it'll be him.
Hey Trevor, thanks for the breakdown. I just wanted to address a few of your issues:
ReplyDeleteIn regards to both the contract breaks and Greek clusters, I've been talking with Lyn Redington and she is open to the idea. I'm hoping that my extensive experience and strong relationships with the DOR will help us achieve our goals.
With the Greek directors, we are still choosing the people for those positions. We just want to make sure that the IFC and PHC will be willing to work with them as well. What's the use of having directors for Fraternities and Sororities if the groups they are communicating with don't want to work with them?
And I'm sorry to have left One Iowa out of this conversation. It was UNIPROUD that first approached me about this, so I brought Annette Lynch, the professor who secured the grants for the Violence Prevention Center, to a PROUD meeting with me and we were able to discuss some concrete actions. I'd be more than happy to get One Iowa's help and input on the topic.
I hope that this eases some of your concerns. Thanks for taking the time to go through and analyze the additions.
Spencer,
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to respond!
I'm glad to know they're open to the idea -- but I'm sure you still understand my hesitation. It has been tried for some time with no progress.
As far as Directors go, will you be asking each constituency to sign off on each spot?
Again, I appreciate the response. Best of luck to you on Wednesday!