Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Student Senate candidate talks about his party's platforms

Adam Wood shares his tactics to improve student living

Adam Wood, Student Senate presidential hopeful, discusses strategies to help with dorm life, testing after breaks and much more.

By Brenna Hawley (Contact)

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Student coalition Students of Liberty released its platforms last week for the upcoming Student Senate election. Adam Wood, Lawrence junior and presidential candidate, said he was still emphasizing saving money in his platforms, but developed more to cover other areas of campus.

Wood said he did not speak with administration about any of his platforms before announcing them and that he planned on talking to them once he was elected.

Reevaluating student fees

Wood said financial spending was his first concern if elected. He said he wanted to go through Senate’s budget and see exactly where all the money was going. He said he wanted to make spending more efficient.

Marlesa Roney, vice provost for student success, said student fees were necessary to fund many activities at the University. She said the University was already fiscally conservative.

Roney said students voted on fees to support certain services and without the money from these fees the services would have to be cut.

Wood said he didn’t want to cut any programs but instead wanted to find surpluses from some fees and move the extra money elsewhere.

No special interest control of Student Senate

Wood said he based this platform off of The University Daily Kansan editorial in the March 6 newspaper. The editorial said Student Senate leadership should not accept gifts from the Athletics Department because it compromises the integrity of Senate. It said that the Athletics Department flew the student body president and vice president to an away football game and also gave them box access at home football games.

“I don’t really blame them for something everyone does,” Wood said.

Wood said all members of his coalition would sign a pledge to not take any gifts from groups that Senate might sponsor.

Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said giving the student body president and vice president the chance to go to an away football game and also box access was something the department had done each year since Lew Perkins became the KU athletics director.

Marchiony said it was an inexpensive way to do something for students. He said it let them see what it was like to be a student athlete and also put them around alumni, lawmakers and regents.

“If I were in Student Senate, I would be upset at the suggestion that anybody at the University is controlling what they say, how they think or how they vote,” Marchiony said.

Wood said that he wasn’t accusing senators of being biased, but said that by taking free tickets, they could appear biased to voters.

Reclassification of mopeds

Wood said he wanted to classify mopeds as bikes so they would not require parking permits. He said this would help students save money and also encourage them to use fuel-efficient mopeds.

Wood said he wanted to work on environmental problems on a local level to prevent state, national or international regulations. He said he wanted to keep outside influences like the government out of local affairs.

Donna Hultine, director of the Parking Department, said any change in moped classification would have to go through the Parking Commission, which is a group of students, faculty and staff who vote on regulation changes. Hultine said the Parking Department sold 118 moped passes this school year.

She said the parking fee structure had always given a break to students who rode mopeds because the passes were so much cheaper than a parking pass. This year a moped pass cost $25, or $15 for someone who already had a parking pass.

Wood said he thought people with mopeds shouldn’t pay any money for passes because they weren’t using parking spots.

Not funding groups that aren’t open to all students

Wood said KU students pay $80 per year to the Women’s and Non-Revenue Intercollegiate Sports Fee, which he said was not allowed in Student Senate rules. He said Senate only funded groups open to all students, which he said didn’t include women’s sports.

“I can’t try out for them,” Wood said of women’s sports. “I don’t think students should pay for them.”

Wood said students also should not give fees to the Athletics Department, which he said made $100 million in annual revenue.

Marchiony said Wood’s numbers were exaggerated. The Athletics Department had $64 million in revenue and $50 million in expenses in the 2007 fiscal year. It had $13.8 million in net revenue, which went to paying for the Student Recreation Fitness Center expansion and transferring a building to the University.

Marchiony said that if Senate cut that student fee, the department would have a difficult time funding those sports the way the department thinks they should be funded, but no sports would be cut. He said cutting that fund, which amounts to almost $2 million per year, would cut into many aspects of women’s and non-revenue sports, including scholarships, transportation costs and facilities.

Wood said he might try to remove the Women’s and Non-Revenue Fee through an open vote to all students if elected.

Prohibit tests and projects after breaks

Wood said that he has had projects and papers due the week after spring break, which helped him come up with this platform. He said students needed rest, especially the ones with large workloads.

Wood said this goal would have to be a collaborative effort with professors.

“A lot of professors have tenure so they’ll do what they want,” Wood said.

Roney said any change in testing policy would have to go through University Governance, where faculty, staff and students vote on University policies.

Roney said she thought students should discuss this platform more because it could limit them at other times in the semester. She said students could be more stressed from this policy because their tests would have to be scheduled closer together.

Wood said he would research other schools that don’t allow tests after breaks and said he thought students would have better GPAs and be happier because of the policy.

Giving more privacy to Student Housing inhabitants

Wood said he wanted to negotiate with Student Housing to give students more protection against unreasonable searches.

Wood said he lived in both Hashinger and Oliver halls and he wanted to treat dorms more like apartments by not making students leave during break and not making them unplug everything when they leave.

Wood said he’d heard stories from people where Resident Assistants had blocked open a door with their foot when they wanted to enter a dorm room.

Diana Robertson, director of Student Housing, said the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities prevented anyone from entering a student’s room. She said the only exceptions were when students went on break and were given notice someone would enter their room, when the authorities gave 24-hour notice they would be entering the rooms or when the student was in imminent danger.

Wood said that when he lived in the dorms, those rules were sometimes broken. He wanted to find a way to enforce them better.

Wood also said another goal was to make it easier for students to stay in housing during spring break. He said a lot of people didn’t have the chance to go home for breaks.

Robertson said not many students applied for housing during breaks. She said that during winter break, more than half the students who stayed only stayed for a day because of travel problems or because of a sporting event.

This year, staying in McCollum Hall during spring break cost $118. Robertson said this was a rate of $14.75 per night, which is what dorm rooms cost during the school year.

—Edited by Mandy Earles

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