On Wednesday, Feb. 20, Tiger TV hosted a debate between the Association of Student Representatives’ presidential candidates Justin Adler and Megan Smith. The debate was moderated by vice president Sean Solis and  each candidate was given the opportunity to state their different ideas for Trinity.

Junior Justin Adler is a member of ASR and external vice president of Pi Kappa Alpha. The former football player plans to pursue issues that include the three-year campus living requirement, parking, hours of operation in the library and Coates University Center, housing improvements, and Greek stability.

Junior Megan Smith, is also a member of ASR and president of Alpha Phi Omega. The student liaison to Aramark plans to pursue issues that include easier student access to ASR, Aramark, parking, and the three-year residency requirement.

The candidates were asked a variety of questions and their standpoints are as follows:

Vision for ASR

Adler: “My vision for ASR next year is to, one, become more open to the student body. I want ASR to be an open source for everyone to go to and for you to be able to come to me with the concerns you have […] and have the faith in me to know that I will go to the administration. It’s the president’s job to not stop and fight until all of those issues and concerns are met or at least done to the best of their ability.”

Smith: “I believe that ASR does a great deal for this campus, but I envision ASR doing much more. I will start with PR and we can set up comment boxes around campus in high traffic areas. I want students to be able to come to ASR with any issues that you may have. The personal beliefs of an ASR president should not get in the way of representing students.”

Fraternity and Sorority Life

Adler: “I think that the administration handled it to the best of their abilities. It was unfortunate what did happen. You want everyone in Greek life to be successful “¦ From what I’ve seen, everyone is doing what they can to get back on campus. All the organizations participated in numerous community service activities.I hope to see them all reinstated in the near future.”

Smith: “Students your concerns are my concerns and I want to represent your opinions. I agree; I believe Trinity administration handled that situation last year to the best of its abilities. I believe that Greek life plays a large role on Trinity’s community and San Antonio’s community.”

Curriculum Model

Adler: ” Taking four classes per semester, you would be able to get more in depth with the things you choose to take. It would allow the teachers to take the time to meet with you individually. There has been research presented to us as a senate that said moving from a five- by-five to a four-by-four does not inhibit a student’s ability to double major.”

Smith: “I personally am not in favor of the four-by -four curriculum model. I believe that severely limits the potential of students studies. Professors will be available for office hours whether the curriculum changes or not. I do believe this curriculum change limits students’ potential academically.”

Parking

Adler: “I believe that on upper campus by the library, Chapman, and Halsell there are a lot of unused visitors’ spots and unused faculty and I would like to see some of those spots be able to be open to alleviate the strain on trying to find spots on upper campus. They should at least eliminate the parking tickets on upper campus as long as the construction is going on there. My long-term goal would be to have a parking garage built on upper campus.”

Smith: “There are two things we can do: number one, bring this issue to the forefront of ASR discussion, and, number two, along the way coming up with smaller things that could alleviate  the situation currently, and another idea is purchasing lots around campus – not the lot – but the time to use the lots. For parking tickets I would like to explore the option of allowing students to instead of paying off the fines, they could pay for them by doing service hours.”

Funding

Adler: “I personally believe that we set a standard of approving funding for leadership conferences through our actions this past semester and this past year. I do believe that we may be able to allow Greeks to apply for leadership conferences that they need funding for. I would allow for Greeks to travel to leadership conferences.”

Smith: “ASR funds events that benefit the campus inclusively, not exclusively as a whole as often as it can. Inclusive events to students on campus, are the types of events that ASR should fund. In regards to funding the Greeks for travel especially in philanthropic and leadership conferences… I think ASR should fund those.”

Housing

Adler: “I believe that the three-year living requirement is not that important to a campus as a whole. We should make it a two-year living requirement with the junior year being optional. I believe that a lot of these dorms on campus definitely need some renovation, and I do believe that we can work on juniors picking first for where they live. We can work on that with the juniors getting their first preference.”

Smith: “There are several dorms on campus that in my opinion need to be renovated. Those are expensive endeavors and we do have to take those dorms one at a time… We cannot fix the three year living requirement immediately but”¦ we could break down sophomore college… so sophomores, juniors and seniors could live together. I plan to make it easier for juniors to live off campus.”

Aramark

Adler: “I am too a fan of how Mabee was when I was a freshman. As of now there is not much we can do with Aramark. Things that I can try to do would be to create more of a food variety in Mabee, Coates, and the P.O.D. I believe that if we open Java City on Sundays earlier and create more foods there and have a bigger variety of options there; we could close down Einstein’s.”

Smith: “I have  been serving on ASR this past term for the first time and Aramark is the thing that I wanted to work with the most. I do not appreciate their regulation, especially in Mabee… Also different dining establishments on campus. I want to work with different  hours of operations… I also want to see that Coates is open later and also on the weekends, and I would like to see more vegan and vegetarian options in Mabee.”

Voting begins this Monday, Feb. 25, through Friday, March 1 in Coates University Center.