President Anthony Burgio, Vice President Dela Yador and Treasurer Jessica Dangler have been successful on many prominent issues during their first four months in office. They have secured a student health center on North Campus, secured the passage of a $10 fee increase and provided a popular headliner for Fall Fest. But the E-board has not fully committed to some other promises they made when they ran as the Elevation Party.
The Spectrum has complied a thorough accounting of the campaign promises the Elevation Party made when they ran for office last spring. We have divided their platform into the following categories: club relations, events, finances, SUNY SA, and media relations.
The grade we give for each category reflects the extent to which SA has fulfilled their promises. Because it is still early in their term we understand they have not had time to do everything they said they would do. We give due recognition where they have committed to fulfilling their promises but have not yet had enough time.
Club Relations
Dela Yador pledged to end the atmosphere of detachment between the e-board and the clubs. Club members are generally satisfied with the new environment, as Yador has been highly visible on campus. In general, club members rave over Yador's accessibility. The level of communication between the e-board and clubs has improved, as Yador promised during endorsements.
However, Yador has failed to secure corporate sponsorship for clubs, which was one of his major campaign promises. Members report receiving information on how to begin the process - this is a good step, but Yador should take more initiative and secure sponsorship for major events himself.
Despite the complaints over a club orientation that some club members said was poorly organized, overall club relations are improved over the previous year and on a good track for this year.
Events
SA's efforts to fulfill the promises they made about their major events have yielded a mixed bag of results. Last spring, Burgio promised both rock and hip-hop acts at Fall Fest and Spring Fest, similar to last year's Fall Fest, which featured Godsmack, Lil' Kim and Nas. But this year's line up is exclusively rock with Incubus, Seven Day Faith and The Music.
Burgio did come through on maintaining a sustainable level of spending on Fall Fest as opposed to the $200,000 blown last year's Fall Fest.
While SA did not deliver on the promise of a mixed genre show, it has produced a Fest with a major headliner at a reasonable cost, and should be commended for that.
There is one event which The Elevation Party has completely abandoned -that is their plans for Bull Break, a grandiose and unworkable vision of a weekly, university-wide hour-long break in classes where students could meet in the Union and engage in school spirit-themed activities. This was a major theme brought up by every member of the Elevation Party last spring, and has essentially been scrapped.
Finances
The major accomplishment of the e-board thus far has been the successful vote to keep the student activity fee mandatory, and to increase it by $10. This will allow SA to maintain funding to its services at previous levels while initiating some new programming. The party also promised to promote efficiency in the SA budget and did reduce their stipends from $10,000 to $9,000 annually.
Promises to cut training conferences held in San Diego and Orlando were carried out, but staff development allocations went up $6,000 overall despite this. Also, Burgio failed to implement the level of cuts he promised in non-professional staff positions. He has not cut student positions by 40 percent as promised, but has reduced expenses 15 percent.
Overall, SA has worked to cut expenses and secure new funding, making them financially salient.
SUNY SA Delegates
Our four SUNY SA delegates serve two functions. Robert Batdorf, Russel Cox, Emily Johnston and Thomas Martin must meet with representatives of every state university at SUNY SA meetings in Albany. While this is their only required function, SUNY SA delegates traditionally have worked to get students registered to vote - something they have not pursued enough so far this year.
The idea behind registering student voters is to use the technique of block voting to elect student-friendly representatives to the state legislature who can positively affect university budgets and issues.
Our four SUNY SA delegates have not yet made a substantial effort to register students. In order for new voters to vote for state legislature seats, or any others, in the November election, they must be registered by Oct. 8. The delegates promised to regularly set up tables in the Student Union to register voters, and so far they have not set up any independent of an SA event. They have distributed information to clubs, but such efforts are not enough. The whole student body should be targeted. The delegates have not done very much at all to register students to vote, a key aspect of their roles.
SUNY SA delegates, rather than trying to register voters by Friday, have chosen to organize a two-day event around the Nov. 2 election date. This is not sufficient. In the 2000 election only half of all college age voters were registered and only around 30 percent showed up on Election Day. More than two days is necessary to counter-act this historical inertia.
Media Relations
Last year campus publications faced significant hurdles to reach SA executives. Former SA President George Pape required a request in writing, and if questions were to be posed, he would also need to see them in writing beforehand. This year, SA leaders have adopted a far more responsible policy. The three members of the e-board and four SA delegates maintain an open and honest relationship with the campus media.
The e-board has not held any press conferences, however, as was promised during their campaign last spring.
By this time last year the former administration had cut funding from the Linda Yalem Run, overspent on Fall Fest, attended frivolous training conferences in exotic locations and stopped talking to campus press in person.
With that as the standard, this year's SA executives have improved tremendously. They have met their major campaign promises by securing the fee increase and the new student health center, along with equality in Sub-Board I payments. They have also been open with the press.
There are however some areas in which SA has yet to deliver as promised. Some campaign promises have not been acted on yet, while others have been scrapped entirely. If a campaign promise is not feasible, it should not be made. SA officials should recall their own promises and make an effort to continue to living up to what they told students they would do if elected.
