by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
Candidates for ASUNM president and vice president discussed diversity and the future of student government with about 70 people in the SUB Atrium on Tuesday.
The elections will be held online today from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
An e-mail with instructions for voting will be sent to students' UNM Web addresses.
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The student chapter of NMPIRG sponsored the forum. Gabriel
Sanchez, assistant professor of political science, was the moderator.
Saliha Qasemi, co-chairwoman of the NMPIRG student chapter, said it was the first time ASUNM has had a forum that catered to the
student body.
"We organized debates to add some democracy to ASUNM's elections," she said. "Previously, there was no forum for ordinary students to reach out to the candidates. We wanted the majority of the actual voters to meet the candidates and ask them questions."
Qasemi said students submitted about 75 questions during the two candidate forums this week.
There are three presidential candidates, three vice presidential candidates and 28 candidates for Senate. There are 10 open seats on the 20-member Senate.
Matt Barnes, who is running for vice president with REACH, said his slate doesn't propose many new goals, because it is focused on continuing ASUNM initiatives already in place.
"We're not making up a bunch of new stuff. We're dealing with the issues that are already on campus," he said. "We have to maintain what ASUNM does. We're not promising the world, because we can't do it all."
Barnes said one of his goals is to make student government more organized and efficient.
"I want to make ASUNM more credible," he said. "I want to use technology and different infrastructures and networking, too, so that we're not scattered, and we don't look like we don't know what
we're doing."
Sebastian Pais Iriart, the vice presidential candidate on the PAC slate, said he wants the graduate and undergraduate student governments to work together to help more students go to graduate school.
Pais Iriart said he and PAC want to make sure UNM's administration understands students' wishes.
"If we win, we will have a meeting between the (Board of) Regents, the president, the senators and all students, so that students can tell the administration what they want,"
he said.
Ilene Strain, who is running for vice president with the KEY slate, said she wants to improve on-campus housing.
"Being an RA in the dorms, I would say that housing is a huge concern of students," she said. "I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be giving students that live on campus things like a swimming pool or a place to barbecue and things like that. I mean, they're lofty goals, but I don't see why we can't ask for those."
Strain said her main objective is to make UNM less divided.
"My biggest goal for the office is to create a University that is more intertwined," she said. "We are definitely currently a very disconnected University, and I think one of the best things we can do for that is to increase communication and try and get people more involved."
