SA candidates discuss food access, efficiency, transparency at debate

There’s still one Orange to root for — The Daily Orange! Donate today and help us win College Media Madness.

The 2022 Student Association campaign debate took place at the K.G. Tan Auditorium of Syracuse University’s National Veterans Resource Center on Thursday night, featuring candidates running for the positions of comptroller, executive vice president and president. Moriah Humiston and Chilekasi Adele of CitrusTV moderated the debate.

Comptroller

The first position presented at the debate was the comptroller, who is responsible for overseeing the SA finance board as its head. Comptrollers, despite not having a vote, advise the board on financial recommendations and decisions. They are also responsible for holding fiscal agent training sessions for student organizations and manage the financial schedule that goes to student organizations.

The only candidate for SA comptroller this year is the incumbent Nyah Jones, a junior sports management major.

In her opening address, Jones focused on her transparency as comptroller over the past term. She said she has provided more information — such as the reason to decline certain financial requests — to students at SA meetings. The current comptroller also said she will continue to make herself more accessible for students and organizations to contact at all hours.

If she is reelected, Jones said she will continue the initiatives and goals she has started during her past term, such as continuing to make changes to the fiscal codes and making sure SA is in “good and caring hands.”

Jones also mentioned that she is currently working on a new program named “The fiscal codes study session,” an optional training for registered student organizations, open to the entire student body.

Jones said SA funding has been equally and evenly distributed based on the fiscal codes, and said she’s seen many more minority organizations receiving funding in the past year compared to previous years.

In her concluding remarks, Jones stated that she wants to be as accessible to the student body and has promised to continue her accessibility if she is reelected as comptroller.

President, vice president

After the comptroller was presented, all three presidential and vice presidential tickets were introduced and began with opening remarks. Incumbent President David Bruen is looking for his second term, joined by executive vice presidential candidate Adia Santos. Jordan Pierre and Breton MacNeil are also running for president, joined alongside running mates Lauren Gloster and Sky Gorczynski, respectively.

In opening remarks, the Bruen-Santos campaign highlighted Bruen’s past successes as president, including creating a grocery store trolley program, investing in providing free menstrual products on campus and the extension of SU’s test-optional policy amid COVID-19, which he advocated for.

Bruen said that his focus is to continue “substantive change instead of vague talking points.” The pair highlighted their experience in the association.

“Adia and I offer experience. No one (is) better to serve than someone who has done the job,” Bruen said.

The Pierre-Gloster campaign focused on uniting the student body through their various initiatives. Pierre said that their campaign presents and establishes relationships with a large demographic of students.

In her opening remarks, Gloster highlighted the campaign’s main initiatives: reshaping the Orange experience, revitalizing the Orange culture, constructing the Orange experience, addressing food insecurity and creating long-term relationships with Syracuse residents.

Gorczynski recently joined SA several weeks ago, while MacNeil hasn’t served as a member of SA. MacNeil is running on the campaign slogan, “If you want the real deal, vote for MacNeil.”

During her opening remarks, Gorczynski said that SA needs to be more well-known and accessible to the rest of the student body.

Dining halls

All candidates expressed support for bringing back meal swipes to the Schine Student Center.

Pierre advocated for the addition of emergency swipes which, as he described, are a certain number of swipes for students that don’t have a meal plan because not all students can afford one.

Gloster continued by advocating for a policy of transporting leftover food from dining halls to places like the Hendricks Chapel food pantry or the local community, an idea that saw unanimous support by the candidates.

Bruen described how he, along with other students, sat down with Jon Webster, SU’s executive director of hospitality, to work on this issue. Bruen said that he, among other SA assembly members, went on to create a Food Services accountability committee.

“This is an issue that has a lot of elements to it, and we have to explore solutions in a lot of different ways,” Bruen said. “If we can get meal swipes back at Schine, if we can make the cost of the meal plan overall go down, if we can do some adjustments to the ’Cuse Cash and Dining Dollars being split, all of these I think would be wins for students.”

MacNeil also expressed his support for returning meal swipes to Schine and Pierre’s initiative of having emergency swipes.

Gorczynski said Dining Dollars should be accessible in more places, such as on-campus grocery stores and vending machines.

“Eating disorders are a huge problem on this campus,” Gorczynski said. “If kids don’t like the dining halls, and they can’t get food after 9 p.m., they are simply not going to eat.”

Santos cited accessibility as the biggest problem with SU’s dining halls, as she believes that the price of meal swipes is too high.

“There’s no reason why you should be swiping into (Ernie Davis Hall) for $15 and grabbing an apple before running to class. It’s just absurd. It makes it impossible for anyone here to afford food,” Santos said.

Mental health

Pierre and Gloster proposed the creation of more mental health days. Both candidates also campaigned on making students feel more comfortable to talk about mental health, promoting more dialogue with SU’s administration on this topic and encouraging professors to be more lenient to students.

Bruen and Santos said they are working closely with SU’s administration to prioritize mental health and wellness of the student body. He also mentioned SA has expanded the mental health awareness week during his term. The pair also expressed interest in creating more mental health days and increasing the diversity of staff, particularly in the Barnes Center at The Arch. Santos said that resources should be available immediately for any students that need them.

MacNeil and Gorczynski said the Barnes Center is adequate, but that “students need to be able to feel comfortable using it.” Both candidates expressed interest in creating a mental health/suicide prevention week as well as opportunities to raise money that can be fueled into mental health programs.

Communication with SA

Gloster said communication was the biggest solution to establish a better connection between the student body and SA. Pierre said the two will prioritize talking to students about issues at hand.

During Bruen’s term, SA held two town halls to hear the concerns of students. The third town hall was scheduled to be held in early March after being postponed from Thursday, Feb. 24.

A big focus of the debate was on the effectiveness of town halls and if more could be done to meet the demands of the student body. Santos said they are both “making it a priority to meet with students” while “trying to be as open and honest as possible.”

MacNeil posed the question as to if the average student would feel comfortable attending town halls. Gorczynski said they would support SA representing itself more in Schine and do a better job explaining to students what SA does behind the scenes.

The debate ended with closing remarks from all three tickets. Pierre and Gloster said that they are doing “more than just making changes to social and political climate, but also defying a lot of stereotypes by being here at SU.”

Bruen and Santos, similar to their opening remarks, highlighted Bruen’s accomplishments during his past term while stressing that they are “committing (themselves) to all students and those finding their way to the Orange community.”

MacNeil and Gorczynski ended the debate by reaffirming their stance as outsiders to SA who are focusing on making students feel more comfortable to express their concerns, making all students feel welcomed.

Voting begins Monday, April 4. Students can vote on their MySlice page. Voting is open between Monday, April 4 and Friday, April 8. The results of the election will be announced publicly on Saturday, April 9 at noon at Hendricks Chapel.