by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
An ASUNM senator is gathering signatures for a letter to the Board of Regents stating that students were not given enough time for meetings with presidential candidates.
Sebastián Pa°s, who started the letter, said he is unhappy with the amount of input students were given.
"If the students are the largest group of people here, we have to be part of the selection process," he said. "I want them (the regents) to see that students do care about it."
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Students are scheduled for 30 minutes with each candidate. Faculty get one hour and 15 minutes, and staff get one hour.
All of the candidates who have visited have stayed past their scheduled time to continue speaking with students.
About 200 people, including all of the ASUNM senators, had signed the letter as of Monday afternoon, he said.
David Schmidly, the final candidate to visit campus, will meet with faculty, staff and students today.
The letter will be presented to the regents at their meeting Wednesday.
Students should not have to count on candidates to stay past their allotted time, ASUNM Sen. Alicia Castro said.
"They did stay with us, which was really nice of them to do," she said. "But the administration should be responsible for it. It should have been more official."
Jamie Koch, president of the Board of Regents, said students were given less time because of low attendance.
"When you have only 30 people there out of tens of thousands of students, that's not very many," he said. "They get at least as much time per person who shows up as the faculty do. The problem is that they need to show up. If a lot of them had come to the first meeting, we could have worked something out."
About 20 students attended the Friday meeting with candidate Robert McGrath.
Castro said students should get the same amount of time, regardless of attendance.
"We understand that student participation in these events was minimal, but by giving us only 30 minutes, they were thinking the worst about us instead of the best," she said.
Although the candidate visits will be over by the time the regents get the letter, it sends an important message, Castro said.
"We're going to show them that there are students who wanted more time," she said. "Hopefully next time, whether it's a presidential search or a provost or whatever, students will be taken more into consideration."
To sign the letter, go to the ASUNM or GPSA office in the SUB.
