In preparation for the upcoming Student Government Association elections, the annual debate night among the executive board candidates took place on Tuesday in the lobby of Griesedieck Hall.

However, no debating occurred.

Each executive board candidate is running unchallenged for office. Consequently, the evening provided an opportunity for each candidate to present his or her individual goals and strategies without having to justify them in light of an opposing set of goals and strategies.

The event did not simply serve as a commercial for the candidates. A significant part of the evening was devoted to a question-and-answer session, during which the candidates fielded questions from the audience and from a panel of student leaders.

Administrative Vice President candidate, Chad Kreikemeier was the first to speak.

Kreikemeier expressed concern that the administrative vice president has not played a big enough role in SGA in recent years.

Kreikemeier hopes to rectify this situation by addressing the issue of senators’ attendance at meetings.

He also plans to improve the process through which chartered student organizations receive their charters.

Dane Salazar spoke next to announce his candidacy for financial vice president. His main concern was funding for CSOs.

According to Salazar, the problem is trying to “allocate scarce resources to unlimited wants and needs.”

He admitted there is no solution. “The only thing we can do to combat this reality is to ensure that the process is as equitable and as efficient as possible,” Salazar said.

Academic Vice President candidate Becky Shelby was the third speaker. Shelby stressed the central role that academics plays at Saint Louis University.

Describing herself as “a doer not a talker,” Executive Vice President candidate Lauren Gretz outlined several ways in which she could contribute to the “legacy of major advancements” taking place at SLU.

Her primary concern is to overhaul the House of Governors to make it a more efficient and productive organization.

Gretz hopes to hold joint meetings of the Senate and the House of Governors twice a semester that would allow them to operate “in a manner of checks and balances never before implemented.”

Gretz also plans to visit student groups and Residence Hall Association meetings to raise awareness about the responsibilities of senators. Her goal is to strengthen the Senate as a whole.

The final speaker of the evening was SGA president Jay Perry, who is running for a second term.

He began by citing many improvements accomplished by the current SGA. Perry then pledged that he and his running mates would continue by “initiating changes in the areas of SGA’s accountability and accessibility, campus safety and unity and the overall quality of student life.”

For increased accountability and accessibility the candidates pledge the following: to move senate meetings to different venues each month; consolidate many committees and have them turn in monthly reports to be circulated to the entire student body; appoint additional members to a Cabinet to help advise the president in key areas; and continue to use and improve the senator training program.

The final area of concern for Perry and his running mates is to improve student life as a whole. Some of the ways proposed by Perry to accomplish this include the use of Town Hall meetings, the recreation of the judiciary branch to settle disputes between student organizations, and improved communication between SGA and the student body.

Many of the questions were aimed at clarifying points made by the candidates, while other questions brought up issues not directly addressed in the speeches.

For example, the relationship between undergraduate and graduate students as well as the role that graduate students play in SGA were issues not directly addressed. However, many of the questions centered on these issues.

In response, Perry cited the addition of a graduate student position on SGA’s executive board as key to creating a tight bond and improving communication between undergraduates and graduate students here on campus.

Students reactions about the evening were positive for the most part.

However, Vijay Chokalingam, a first year medical student, was concerned by the candidates responses to questions about graduate student issues.

Chokalingam felt that the answers given were evasive and that there was a general lack of concern about graduate student issues.

He was bothered that “graduate students are such a high percentage of the student body, yet [the candidates] don’t care.”

SGA Election Commissioner Emily Ebsworth felt that the candidates had a “realistic and optimistic platform.”

She thought the format worked well since the time normally taken up by debating allowed for an extended question-and-answer session.

She added that the questions asked were representative of the students’ concerns.