Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

It's time to ask questions, get answers

Student Senate candidates will participate in debate sponsored by The Kansan

Get to know the candidates at The Kansan's Student Senate Debate. Presidential and vice presidential candidates will face off on Tuesday, March 25, in the Kansas Union.

By Brenna Hawley (Contact)

Originally published 12:00 a.m., March 5th, 2008
Updated 07:31 a.m., March 14th, 2008

Students will have the chance to submit questions to student body presidential and vice presidential candidates in The University Daily Kansan’s Student Senate debate, which will be held the week after spring break.

The Kansan, which has never hosted a debate before, is inviting students to submit questions to candidates via the YouTube channel "KansanDotCom." The questions will then be played for the candidates during the debate.

Darla Slipke, Bristol, Conn., senior and Kansan editor-in-chief, will be one of the moderators of the debate. The Kansan will collaborate with KJHK-FM and KUJH-TV, the campus radio and TV stations, for the event.

Slipke said the debate was a way to get more readers involved in the Student Senate elections. She said many students didn’t realize how important Student Senate was and how much influence they could have on student life, especially through dispersal of student fees.

“The debate is a great way to let students ask questions and make informed decisions,” Slipke said.

Slipke said that the generation of students in college now are very involved with technology, so the debate would likely appeal to them.

Brian Lewis-Jones, Lenexa senior and Kansan Web editor, said the debate would be a great way to raise awareness about local democracy and that he hoped the debate would take away the passive outlook some students have on the election.

“The Kansan logo says ‘The Student Voice Since 1904,’” Lewis-Jones said. “As of now, I see no better opportunity to perpetuate the student voice.”

Lewis-Jones said the debate was modeled off the CNN-YouTube debate between U.S. presidential candidates. Viewers submitted questions to YouTube, which were then played for candidates when the debate aired on CNN.

Lewis-Jones is also integrating other types of multimedia into the debate. Coalitions will have their own blog on Kansan.com. They will be limited in their number of posts, and all posts will go through a moderator.

Brett Murray, Lenexa junior and news director at KJHK-FM, said that although the station has never broadcast the debate live before, the station would try to do it this year. He said the station would then rebroadcast the debate and air other Senate stories to complete what he said is the most extensive Senate coverage he’s ever heard by KJHK-FM.

Murray said that by using the different multimedia, he hoped to reach as many students as possible. He said students needed to be aware that Senate controlled student-paid fees and that voting for them would encourage good voting practices later in life.

“The importance of the right to vote is very understated in this country,” Murray said.

Dick Nelson, general manager and news coordinator at KUJH-TV, said the television station would also be involved in the debate. Nelson said the station wanted to broadcast the debate live, but hadn’t done much live coverage and had to coordinate the technology to make it possible. He said if they didn’t broadcast live, they would either tape the story and rebroadcast it on the station or stream it on the Internet.

The debate will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, in Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.

— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld

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