Student Senate Election
Page 6 University Daily Kansan, November 18, 1980
Spectrum examines bus system funding
Seeking external funding for the "KU on Wheels" program will be a major concern of the Spectrum Coalition administration, according to Larry Metzger, Kansas City, M., junior and Kristy Kesougan. Topeka junior.
Metzer and Kossover, Spectrum candidates for student body president and vice president, said the additional benefits lead to benefits to other areas on campus.
Their second major concern, would be improving communication between students and student senators and within the senate itself, they said.
According to Metzger, Lawrence's population has grown to the point where it now qualifies for federal funding for a transportation system.
Metzger said Lawrence could qualify for about $450,000 in funds. By accepting a portion of that, Metzger, students could be relieved of part of the funding of the program and still retain partial control of the system.
ADDITIONAL FUNDING would free money that could be used to offset a fee increase next year or another. The college's athletic or nonconsecutive sports like tennis, be said.
Metger is president of Battenfeld Scholarship Hall and is majoring in organismal biology and psychology. He has earned a master's degree in counseling. He has not served as a senator.
"My concept of Senate is primarily that it serves as a representative of student opinion to the administrative personnel," Metzger said. "The Senate's second role deals with budgeting—allocating the money that belongs to students—allocating the money that belongs to the community, particularly with respect to cultural areas and areas of higher education."
METZGER AND Kossover said they
wanted to "increase student interest and restore legitimacy to the Senate." To do this, they said they wanted to criticize what Senate was doing and why.
Koassover, a social welfare senator, said she decided to run because "I saw a lot of problems in Senate that could be solved before, to be, before Senate could work."
She said she saw her role as vice president as the person in charge of the internal working of Senate, making sure it ran smoothly and that all students had a chance to express their views.
Kossover is a social welfare major and a member of Alba Phi sorority.
Metzger and Kossover said their 20-member coalition also supported building multi-level parking sites where there are now only single lots.
"We think the number of tickets issued does not show a tendency to disobey laws but a lack of close parking facilities to campus, and the time when they are on the street or on class on time when they have to park far away," Metzger said.
Metzger and Kossover said they also supported beer sales in the stadium, supplemental English tutoring for students, and lighting for increased campus safety.
Metzger said he did not think over-selling parking tickets was unethical, because KU does not run on an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. He explained that the new building is not parking there therefore not every parking space is used all the time.
Metzger said he supported a Student Senate petition to place a student on the Board of Regents, a 100 percent graduate teaching assistant fee waiver and a self-help amendment to the Landlord-Tenant Act.
Spectrum coalition presidential and vice presidential candidates, Larry Metzger and Kristy Koehler.
This week's election to fill 58 of 65 seats
Only 58 of the 65 seats in the Student Senate will be filled in this week's election because of University Code guidelines.
The other seven seats will be occupied by representatives of living groups and special representatives to the University Council.
The living group representatives come from four of the five living groups listed in the University Code, and the senate members elected during the regular Senate election.
ASHC chooses its senator in March, along with the other members of the ASHC executive board and its officers, Mike Regler, ASHC president, said.
Regier said the senator was selected from a pool of applicants, as were the other members of the executive board, and was appointed by the board and the ASHO officers.
THE OFFICERS and board members are chosen by the outgoing officers, Beger said.
In AURH, the Senate seat belongs to the president of that organization, who usually appoints someone else to fill the spot, Jay Smith, AURH president, said.
The president rarely has time to be a member of Senate, Smith said. Smith has had to fill the seat while searching for a senator during the past several months.
AURH also holds its elections in March, Smith said, but may move them closer to November's Student Senate elections. This is the first year the Senate is holding its main elections in November.
The IFC senator has been chosen in the past by informal agreement of the executive council, Bob McRorey, council member, said.
A formal system of nomination has never been used in the Panhellenic to choose a senator, Wolfe said, but the senator is approved by the executive council and the delegate council of the Panhellenic.
PANHELENIC CHOOSES those members who are interested, and they are allowed to serve until either they or the executive council feel they are no longer effective, Jennifer Wolfe, president of Panhelenic, said.
The newly elected senators choose three outgoing Senate members to remain in the Senate as members of the University Council, the student-faculty organization that oversees the University Senate.
The special representatives to the University Council-holdover senators—are chosen at the first hearing of the Senate after the elections.
An even more informal process is used by the Panhellenic organization.
Nine other representatives are chosen for University Council later in the year, but because they come from the ranks of the present Senate members, they do not add to the number of members in Senate.
Impact coalition vice presidential and presidential candidates, Bren Abbott and Bert Coleman.
The Student Senate has the power to influence administrative and legislative decisions. Bert Coleman, student body president, said last week.
Impact aims to utilize Senate's influence
"Senate is去 to have very little power unless students are behind it," Coleman said. "We're not here to serve the chancellor and the Regents. The chancellor and the Regents are here to teach our student. They'll listen to us if we talk to them."
"If students work together, we can have an effect," he said.
Bren Abbott, Impact Coalition's vice president candidate, agreed. He said students should be able to lobby for their rights.
is majoring in engineering and business. He has not served as a student senator, but said his contacts with the administration through his fraternity work would benefit him as student body president.
Coleman said that his running mate knew the Senate inside and out. Abbott, a Topeka junior and journalism major, a Topkea junior and newspaper mauser. He has never served as a seepator.
have attended, the
COLEMAN, A MEMBER of the Phi
Kappa Psi Fraternity and vice
president of the Interfraternity Council,
Coleman and Abbott have chosen a restructuring of the Senate budget process as one of the priority issues of the 37 member Impact Coalition.
"Eighty percent of Senate time is spent on budget hearings," Abbott said. "The hearings get long and boring and lose them from the Senate entirely."
Abbott said he would like to set up a
permanent budget committee of senators and non-senators that would determine allocations. The Senate would then vote only on accepting the organization's request instead of making it. The organization's request would not be reheard by the Senate.
Coleman said he liked the idea of having a student Regent, but questioned the necessity of students attending a representative on the Board of Regents.
COLEMAN AND ABBOTT said they also supported the sale of beer in Memorial Stadium, a self-help provision for the Landlord-Tenant Act. Provision for campus security and a policy of grading that would use plumbs but not minutes.
"Where is the representative going to come from?" Coleman said. "If he
comes from a particular institution, is
he going to represent all students?
yes
"We don't have all the answers but we know it is more important is for, to work on finding answers."
Coleman said the Senate could not spread itself too thin, and needed to carefully consider working with social issues or only with academic issues.
Coleman said students should decide on the issues.
"As president, I should be the voice to the administrators and legislators," he said. "I think I can work well with the teachers. If we have to lie, they are going to throw us out the door."
Abbott said, "It is our responsibility to be sure students' opinions get to the right people. We have to follow through."
KU resting on laurels, candidate says
"Students don't feel like the Senate represents them anymore," Mark Bernstein, Lawrence graduate student in education, said last week. body president, said last week.
John Gullory, Springhill junior and Bernstein's running mate, agreed. Both men said that they want to do something about it.
Bernstein and Guillory said interest would be sparked if students were made aware of problems and the power they held with administrators and legislators.
According to Guillory, 'Students can
do anything they want to do on this
course.'
Bernstein, a graduate student in the School of Fine Arts, said that as president he would structure the Senate to address issues for all students to explore ideas, issues and concerns.
Whether he agreed or disagreed with what the senators decided, he would deliver their decision to the ad-ministrators, legislators and Regents, he said.
Bernstein said he had studied and worked at the University for the past 15 years, and during that time had seen actually lose its academic credibility.
BERNSTEIN HAS been a holdover senator for two years, and has served on the University Council, University and a number of advisory councils.
It's a trend he wants to reverse.
Bernstein said the University needed
to invest more money and time in
programs and in hiring
professors.
He said students should be given a say in the 'promotion, reinstatement' plan.
Faculty and administrators, Bernstein said, "treat students like they onl- ion, know what's going on. But stolen do, and they should have some inout."
HOWEVER, BERNSTEIN said he had mixed feelings about a Student Senate petition to place a student on the Board of Regents.
"It would be an avenue for talking with them, but I don't know many students that would want the job or be qualified for it," he said.
Bernstein agreed with the other presidential candidates that allocating student fees was one of the major functions of the Senate. He said he hoped the senators would ask to how the money was allocated and to whom it was allocated.
The Graduate Student Council has endorsed Bernstein and Gullory. Bernstein said graduate students and undergraduate senators needed to work together in the Senate. He said he would have a separate graduate student senate.
Graduate students, for example, he said, needed funding for travelling and living abroad. He was prohibited by the Senate revenue code, he said, and that should be changed.
GUILLORY HAS not served on the Senate in any capacity, although he said he had worked for social causes and he freed of speech and nuclear power.
Bernstein and Guillory said they
wanted to keep politics out of their
families and not do much advertising.
families would not do much advertising.
"Independents have not carried the
Independent presidential and vice presidential candidates, Mark Berstein and John Gullory.
Student election turnout falls; trend began in 1969
The people who are elected to the University of Kansas Student Senate are the chosen representatives of the KU students.
But no one really knows exactly how many students will participate in that elective process when the polling places open tomorrow and Thursday.
The number of students who vote in the Senate elections has been on a downward trend since the Senate's early turnout figures are unclear.
In 1969, 4,970 students voted in the spring elections, but those figures also included the ballots for class officers, who were elected separately from the senators.
However, that 1989 figure is more than twice the 2,000 students who voted in the 1980 Student Senate elections.
Between 1869 and 1972, the number and percentage of students who voted in elections dropped steadily. Interest in the Senate reached a low point in the
spring of 1973, when only one presidential and vice president team ran and only 14.4 percent of the students voted.
Since then, voter turnout and candidate participation has been erratic.
In the spring of 1977, the Senate elections had their highest turnout ever for the Senate along, when 4,209 students voted.
The very next year, the lowest turnout in Senate election history was recorded when only 2,025 students voted. The Senate recovered somewhat in 1979, when 3,610 students voted, but was down again in 1980.
have a direct effect.
Matt Davis, student body vice president, said he didn't expect a
This year's election features three coalitions with presidential and vice presidential candidates. Numerous small coalitions run each year.
The number of coalfires has fue-
tured to six as many as five in 1979 to
two in spring 1980.
significantly higher turnout this year, although a few more students may vote because of the publicity given to the changes in Senate.
While the candidates campaign and try to win students over to their points of view this week, those who actually vote probably will be in the minority.
But Davis said he didn't expect the changes themselves, such as a recent rerouting of its highways.
And most of the students will have nothing to save at all.
Senate election begins tomorrow
Student Senate elections begin tomorrow morning.
Voting booths will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday on the fourth floor of Wescoe Hall, the Information Booth on Jayhawk Boulevard and the lobbies of the Kansas Union, Satellite Union lobbies and Robinson Center.
Tomorrow evening, booths will be set up from 5 to 9 at Naismith Hall, Gertrude S. Pearson and Joseph R.
Pearson halis and Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house.
Thursday night, booths will be open from 5 to 7:30 at Oliver and Corbin residence halls; Alpha Gamma Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta and Delta Gamma sororities house; Deli Chi fraternity house; Sellars Scholarship Hall; and Lewis; Hall.
Stories on this page were written by Diane Swanson and Mike Roblason, Staff reporters.