Pictured Above: In the live debate, students could see whoever was speaking at the time, but moderators and candidates could view live reactions of the other tickets, view chat and type messages amongst themselves.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
By Molly Ryan
The two presidential and vice presidential Student Government tickets debated their outlook for the future of USF in their first and only debate on Feb. 25, ahead of the March 8-11 SG elections.
The debate, moderated by The Crow’s Nest and The Oracle, was divided into five topics: advocacy, health and wellness, consolidation, finances and student success. Afterwards, students were able to participate in a live Q&A.
Before the debate began, each ticket was given an opportunity to briefly explain their platform.
First up was Julia Cunningham and Jillian Wilson. The two highlighed their initiatives to promote diversity, address all forms of sexual assault on campus, improve mental health resources, empower the student body and continue to move towards 100 percent green energy on campus.
Next, Jaida Abbas and Jennifer Kelly explained the key points behind their RISE platform: responding to disparities of the pandemic, integrating new resources, strengthening the student body and empowering students to rebuild.
Advocacy
The advocacy topic focused on each ticket’s plan to advocate for marginalized groups at the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses.
Both tickets expressed concern over low enrollment numbers of diverse groups across all three campuses.
“We are going to do this by promoting scholarships on different campuses,” Cunningham said. “We understand that black student enrollment is down by 13 percent and we feel that is an issue that needs to be addressed.”
To that point, Abbas emphasized the need to “work to unravel the cyclical patterns that prevent certain groups from enrolling in the university.”
Abbas also stressed the importance of inclusive language.
“This means language that doesn’t alienate anyone of a certain identity or a certain background and language that is conscious of all lived experiences of students at USF so they can feel empowered and encouraged to speak up…”
Both tickets have platforms on advocacy for victims of sexual assault.
Cunningham and Wilson expressed advocacy and treatment for all forms of sexual assault under their multi-level initiative: “Awareness to Action.” Under this initiative, educating students on handling sexual assault on campus will be emphasized.
Abbas and Kelly plan to connect with crisis centers across the three campuses in order to make services for students more accessible and provide free rape kits for survivors of rape.
Both tickets plan to advocate for the concerns of international students who have been unable to return to campus directly.
Health and wellness
The series of health and wellness questions examined how the candidates plan to bring a better sense of wellbeing to both students and staff.
Both tickets expressed enthusiasm for responding to mental health issues on campus.
Abbas and Kelly’s platform entails expanding its legislative avenues into providing the Counseling Center with more funding in order to better equip its students for focusing on long-term goals.
The ticket also wants to encompass a more inclusive range of mental health issues and make sure that not only those struggling with more common issues, like anxiety and depression, are focused on, but that all students can be given proper attention.
Cunningham and Wilson feel that advocating to hire a more diverse body of mental health professionals could benefit those in need of assistance.
They also want to move toward creating a 24/7 mental health service line for USF students, as well as having more specialized individuals respond to mental health issues as opposed to the USF Police Department.
Both tickets want to take a more sustainable approach to campus life.
One way Abbas and Kelly plan to combat waste on campus is to station compost bins around campus. Cunningham and Wilson want to make it a priority to locally source food for the dining halls as well as replace fluorescent lights with energy-saving bulbs.
Consolidation
On the topic of consolidation, each ticket was asked to express their plan on creating unity across all three campuses under OneUSF.
Cunningham expressed that, “communication and collaboration is the basis of our relationship with student representatives from all campuses, so we have a plan to have an open-door policy – we want both students and the representatives to know that they can come to us with any issue or concern.
Similarly, Abbas stressed the value in embracing the differences across all three campuses.
“One commonality I’ve seen in consolidation in the past year is that oftentimes we focus so heavily on this ‘OneUSF’ mentality that we avoid and push down the differences between us,” Abbas said. “But if we’re going to be successful… we are going to have to celebrate the differences between our three campuses and capitalize off of them.”
Finances
In this segment, the candidates discussed allocating funds.
Both tickets stressed the importance of communication between students, staff and various organizations.
Cunningham and Wilson want to create more transparency in the funding process between student organizations and student government. They expressed that their plan is to create a task force that would increase communications between the two.
Abbas and Kelly implored students to voice their concerns on allocations directly to student government.
Student Success
In the final series of questions, the candidates discussed their plans to promote student success in and out of student government.
Both tickets addressed the lack of student government engagement on the branch campuses.
While Abbas and Kelly ticket feel that a “cohesiveness between the local and federal government” will help engagement, the Cunningham and Wilson ticket feel it is the responsibility of the consolidated SG to boost the numbers of participants at branch campuses.
Both tickets underlined that if elected they would make an effort to hold both one another as well as the rest of SG accountable for seeing their platform promises to fruition.
Q&A
In the question and answer portion of the debate, the candidates were read questions posted in the chat by moderators Leda Alvim of The Oracle and Sophie Ojdanic of The Crow’s Nest.
Many questions expanded upon the topics already discussed in the debate with candidates further expanding upon their platforms.
The debate was concluded on a brighter note, with both tickets being asked to shed light on the significance of being an all-female election – something rarely seen in SG.
“Both of our tickets, Abbas and Kelly and Cunningham and Wilson… we are all just as qualified and capable of doing the job as our male counterparts as well as the previous men who have run for and held these positions,” Wilson said.
