by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
Although ASUNM senators say they have achieved their goals, many of their campaign promises are repeats of the last two years.
A "closed week" before finals, when professors would have tests or papers due and would not introduce new material, was proposed in previous elections.
Sen. Jacque Garcia said ASUNM has made progress in getting such a week, but still has work to do.
"Dead week has been addressed, but that's just an ongoing thing," Garcia said. "You have to start somewhere, and people can't just expect to see results right away."
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The implementation of a closed week stalled in the Faculty Senate last year because some faculty members weren't enthusiastic about it.
Vice President Justin Crosby said in a Daily Lobo article on Dec. 7, 2004, that he wanted to work on implementing a closed week in the spring semester and would make it a personal priority.
Regent President Jamie Koch asked ASUNM president Kevin Stevenson what happened with closed week at Tuesday's regents meeting.
"Umm, who knows," Stevenson said, adding ASUNM had written about 100 different proposals, but none had gone through.
Stevenson said he met with Faculty Senate President Ed Desantis last week to look at the feasibility of getting closed week passed.
Desantis said faculty have some concerns because it infringes on their academic freedom.
He said the Faculty Senate couldn't vote on the measure until April 26, their next meeting.
Presidential candidate Sen. Brittany Jaeger said the issues for her in this election are similar to the ones in the last election. She said one of her main goals during her last term was to increase the involvement of students who live in the dorms.
"It worked out well, but it would have worked out better if I had stayed living in the dorms," Jaeger said.
More than half of the candidates on the Unite slate live in the dorms, and four of them are resident advisors, she said.
Jaeger said there is no correlation between where students live and how much input they give ASUNM.
"I hear a lot from the dorms, because I have a lot of friends who live in the dorms," Jaeger said. "But I also hear a lot from people off campus, like the Greek community."
The number of candidates involved in this election is a sign of increased interest in student government, Sen. Justin Stewart said.
Two full slates and three independent candidates are running. Last year one slate and two independent candidates ran for ASUNM president, vice president and Senate positions.
Presidential candidate Sen. Alex Hughes said the biggest issues for him during the last election were increasing contact between ASUNM and student organizations and getting CIRT pods open 24 hours a day. Extending computer lab hours is a part of his slate's platform this year.
However, issues weren't as important in the previous election, he said.
"Issues weren't that big last election, because it wasn't really a contested race," Hughes said.
Sen. Mike Mooney said he did not run in the last election with specific goals because he was not on a slate.
Mooney said his biggest goal after being elected was to minimize tuition increases.
"One thing I wanted to do was make sure tuition didn't go too high. I right away went to budget meetings," Mooney said.
Jaeger said she was also involved in fighting tuition increases and went with several other ASUNM senators to a state Senate meeting in Santa Fe to make sure that the lottery scholarship award would still be linked to tuition.
"I think that a lot of the people up in Santa Fe understood what we were talking about, because they saw us and saw how it was affecting us," Jaeger said.
Hughes, Jaeger and Mooney all identified tuition increase as one of the main issues for anyone elected.
The regents approved a 9.9 percent tuition and fees increase Tuesday at the Board of Regents meeting. ASUNM supported a 12 percent tuition and fees budget proposal Monday.
Rivkela Brodsky contributed to this report.
Polling Locations
SUB North Entrance: 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Zimmerman Library: 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Anderson: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Dane Smith Hall: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Johnson Center: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
SRC Commons: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Centennial Library: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
South Campus 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
ASUNM election to include student survey
Students voting in the ASUNM election today will also be able to answer two poll questions.
The questions will be: Would you like to make the current student section at The Pit exclusive to students, and which of the following forms of advertising are most informative to you as a student?
Students will be able to choose two of the possible answers, which are newspapers, fliers, chalking, flat-screen monitors, digital billboards and other. Students who choose "other" will be able to write in an answer, ASUNM Elections Chairwoman Lauren Haggerty said.
"The opinion polls are important because they reflect what students want, and ASUNM is supposed to represent the students," Haggerty said. "If students put the right thing, senators will be better able to represent them."
Presidential candidate Brittany Jaeger agreed.
"I think they're very important, and I think they will definitely help get the student section and get advertising that students want to see," she said.
Jaeger said the results of the opinion polls will also provide meaningful statistics for ASUNM tto use when promoting its proposals.
Haggerty said the opinion polls are useful, but are only a guideline.
"The opinion polls are always used as basically market research," Haggerty said. "They're used in the decisions, but they're definitely not the final say."
The ASUNM Senate approved the questions on the ballot.
- Caleb Fort
