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THE NEWS RECORD
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
NEWSRECORD.ORG
THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015
MEET YOUR SG LEADERS CASSIE LIPP | CHIEF REPORTER
Wearing matching blue shirts, red ties, navy blue jackets and khakis, the newly elected student body president and vice president sat down with The News Record Thursday evening to talk about their term goals. Andrew Naab, a political science and economics major, and Andrew Griggs, a mechanical engineering major, do not always wear the same outfit — they are adhering to the dress code of the Sigma Sigma Men’s Honorary Society meeting, which they attended later that evening. Although they will not be inaugurated until March 25, the two Andrews have already started working to accomplish their platform. The main goals of their platform include reforming mental health care at the University of Cincinnati and modifying Student Government so that the organization can become a more effective vehicle of change. Both in their fourth years of involvement with SG, Naab and Griggs said they are determined to accomplish the goals they stated in their platform because they said that SG has not been performing well as an organization. “The idea behind our platform is that we wanted to provide tangible and specific evidence and ideas; that way the students would know whether or not Andrew and I completed our platform,” Naab explained. Naab and Griggs want to improve mental health care at the university because they said it is the only public university in the state of Ohio that does not offer free individual mental health counseling sessions to all students. UC Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) currently offers individual mental health counseling sessions for $60 per session. Fees are waived for some students, such as victims of sexual assault. CAPS also offers free group sessions to students. In order to prepare their platform for the campaign, Naab and Griggs’ campaign team researched mental health statistics for all public universities in Ohio. They found that schools smaller than UC — Kent State University, University of Akron and Youngstown State University — offer an unlimited number of free individual sessions to all students. The campaign team also researched the statistics for the other schools in the same division as UC in the American Athletic Conference. They found that the only schools in the division that do not offer free individual sessions to students are UC and University of Connecticut. “Right now, we’re trailing behind by so much it’s embarrassing,” Griggs said. Naab and Griggs’ goal is to work with CAPS so that students can get at least five free sessions per year. This will match the number of free sessions at Miami University, the school that offers the fewest number of free sessions next to UC. “The fact that every other public school in Ohio offers free sessions to people and we’re the only one that charges the people that don’t fall into the exceptions, it just means that we’re not putting mental health resources as a priority like other schools in the state are,” Griggs said. Griggs said that many students cannot afford to pay $60 per session, and they will not use their family health insurance plans if they do not want their parents to find out they are seeking therapy. Naab and Griggs said there should be no obstacles in front of students seeking mental health care, because it can be a life or death situation for students suffering from depression, anxiety or some other form of mental illness. “[Mental health] is one of our biggest priorities, because it’s not just improving campus life,” Griggs said.“This is peoples’ lives.” According to the 2014 National College Health Assessment, over 8.6 percent of 79,266 college students surveyed were diagnosed or treated by a professional for one mental illness — including anxiety and obsessivecompulsive disorder — within the year. The same percentage reported suffering from both anxiety and depression. Mental health affects many areas of the students’ lives, such as job placement, test scores, physical wellness and the relationships they develop with others, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“The fact that we’re not doing enough to create a safe environment for people — it’s not good enough,” Naab said. Naab added that the pair can’t accomplish its goal alone. Naab and Griggs need collaboration with CAPS to be able to put the case study together. They also need to work with the financial system at UC to make sure that CAPS has the resources to necessary to extend the program. Griggs said that offering free sessions to students can create a hole in the CAPS budget, but UC is in a good financial position based on enrollment numbers and moving up in rankings. Therefore, UC should be able to invest in mental health care as much as the other public universities in Ohio do. “We at least want to provide a good starting point for this issue,” Griggs said. To make information about their platform more accessible to students, Naab and Griggs have made it available online at naabgriggs.com. The part of the platform students will not be able to see, however, is the restructuring that could occur within Student Government. “We want to redesign Student Government internally to allow for our external growth,” Naab said. They said they will begin by restructuring the cabinet instead of filling in cabinet positions because of overlap in cabinet positions. For example, one person could be doing the same job as two to three other positions. “What that does is creates this overarching Student Government where people literally don’t know what they’re tasked with doing,” Naab said. The two are working on creating reasonable and wellmeaning positions within their executive staff. They also plan to restructure the SG budget to allow more cabinet members to have the freedom to do projects Naab and Griggs want them to do so that they do not have to come to Senate for approval. Griggs said that SG is outdated, and there are some positions that exist in the organization just for the sake of existing. “We’ve forgotten how to serve as an amplifier for students and fight for what we believe in, and we’ve sort of entrenched ourselves in this big bureaucracy,” Griggs said. “You get promises that people come around with every election season that never happen, because this bureaucracy is not effective in getting things done that actually matter to people.” Griggs said they want to put students in cabinet positions they feel empowered in, rather than feel that obstacles are being thrown at them. Naab added that they want to put those students in a place to answer administrative questions, rather than just the president and vice president who typically handle administration questions, such as budget matters and spirit initiatives. “Realistically, Andrew and I realize as student body president and vice president, we are not going to be experts on much,” Naab said.“We need to be making sure that we’re putting people in positions that have had the real life experience, that are passionate about spirit or diversity initiatives, rather than he or I. Our job is to support, not to necessarily try to tackle every project that administrative members want us to.” They are also restructuring the interview process for cabinet members to create a more inclusive environment. They are reaching out to university offices such as the Women’s Center, the LGBTQ Center and the Ethnic and Program Services Office for guidance on the best practices as well as recommendations of students for the positions. Naab and Griggs want passionate students who are heavily immersed in the communities they are a part of to apply for cabinet positions. They said there is a large disconnect because students feel the cabinet members representing them are not engaged with the communities they represent. Griggs said they want these passionate students with different perspectives to bring new conversations to SG because the organization is currently stuck passing appropriations bills nobody agrees with, going through the motions and not having meaningful conversations. “It’s not what each of the members of that body are elected to do,” Griggs said.“They’re elected to fight for the students … Student Government should be the body where we find out what the voice of students is and amplify it.”
ME
ET YOUR
SENATORS Colin Baker Brad Chamblin Brooke Duncan Jacob Harnist Jackie Mulay Jacob Whyle Elysse Winget Emily Heine (re-elected)
SG members discuss poor voter turnout, improving student engagement CASSIE LIPP | CHIEF REPORTER
MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR
Student Body President Christina Beer said there was hardly any information about SG elections this year, which may have contributed to low voter turnout.
During Student Government’s last meeting before newly elected officers take over, the body discussed low voter turnout and improving engagement with the University of Cincinnati community. Meghan Cappel, SG election facilitations committee vice chair, showed voter statistics to give SG members tangible evidence of the low voter turnout. A total of 6,161 students voted — a voter-turnout rate of 19 percent. The voter turnout for minority students was much lower than the voter turnout of white students. Student Body Vice President Shivam Shah, who served as EFC chair for the election, asked how SG can better engage students next campaign season — especially with students of color — and what they can do as a university to fix the low voter turnout. He also raised the question of how the snow days that closed UC during most of the campaign week affected the low turnout. Cappel said that although
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engaging minority students to vote is something to work on, diversity is more of a recruitment issue for the university. If more minority students come to UC, then more minority students can vote in elections. Tobi Akondede, chair of Governmental Relations Committee, said the voter turnout rate was simply unacceptable. The rate was lower than the voter turnout in national elections, and many citizens are apathetic about national government. He reminded SG that historically, there were laws made meant to restrict minorities from voting, yet the minority voter turnout is still higher in national elections than SG elections. He added that if students have access to vote online, more students should be voting. “Maybe the way that we are campaigning right now isn’t as effective as we think it is,” Akondede said. Akondede said the number of students actively involved in student organizations is low SEE SG PG 3
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