More than one hundred students, faculty and staff filled a conference room in Page Hall Monday night to see former Sen. John Glenn participate in Ohio politics on a smaller scale.
Glenn moderated the second Undergraduate Student Government executive debate, asking each of the three teams questions pertaining to their platforms on important student issues.
Glenn said he thought the debate went very well. “They’ve obviously thought a lot about their issues and what their main issues were and they were very vocal in presenting them,” he said. “That’s what politics is all about.”
The debate opened with a clarification of party platforms followed by a brief look at what the teams thought to be the most important issues facing Ohio State students. While all of the candidates cited safety as a major concern, each team took a different approach on how to solve the problem.
Dave Knapp said the ability to affect change comes only by implementing a large amount of policies, while Matt Kreiner said an effective USG must focus on one or two key issues during the short time in office. Ryan Fournier said the best way to solve university problems is to support organizations that already work toward solving such campus issues.
Concerning mandatory Recreation and Physical Activity Center and COTA bus fees, Kreiner said he would make the sacrifice to pay those fees so his peers have the opportunity to utilize the services. Fournier also said he agreed with the fees.
“We need new facilities such as the RPAC and the Union to make sure students have the most up-to-date resources available to them,” Fournier said.
For Knapp, the issue was whether students needed these services.
“Any time that we wager any type of fee across the entire student population, we have to make sure that it’s justified,” he said.
Each of the teams was then asked specific questions about its platform. For Fournier, the issue was safety. He reinforced his campaign platform to follow the “Broken Window” theory, which is the idea that tackling smaller crimes such as graffiti and car break-ins will lead to long-term improvements in safety as a whole.
Kreiner addressed efficiency in USG. He said the best way to manage the organization is to know the central priorities and not to spread resources too thin. Kreiner also said that, as vice president, he learned it is important to manage an effective cabinet, giving the senators ample room to grow and serve their own committees to the best of their capacity.
Knapp was asked to justify his plan to implement a 24/7 health hotline for students against his platform advocating responsible use of USG funds. He said this program would be beneficial to students because it would give them access to qualified doctors and nurses while alleviating the costs of going to the OSU Medical Center. Knapp said the plan is feasible and would be a good use of USG funds.
The debate was judged by John Parrish, an assistant professor in the department of political science, Linda Harlow, associate provost of the Honors and Scholars program and Larry Libbey, interim director of the John Glenn Institute. Annie Glenn also sat on the panel but did not vote. In overall scoring, Knapp and Kreiner tied with nine out of 10 points in both style and content. The Fournier team was close behind with an average score of 7.5.
Voting for the USG elections will begin at midnight on Thursday and end at 11:59 p.m. Friday.
