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Friday, April 1, 2011

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E D I T O R I A L L Y

Issue 51 I N D E P E N D E N T

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906

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Vol. 116 S T U D E N T

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U N I V E R S I T Y

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T E N N E S S E E

SGA parties intensify campaign enthusiasm SPARK strives to ‘energize’ UT Reach focuses on communication

• Photo courtesy of Spark

Kristian Smith Student Life Editor By powering academics, charging campus life and igniting university outreach, the members of the SPARK campaign hope to make a difference in SGA. The students running for the three main SGA positions — president, vice president and Student Services director — for the SPARK campaign are Courtney Vick, junior in journalism and electronic media, Max Gearin, sophomore business pre-major, and Quintavias King, junior in accounting, respectively. Vick said her passion for SGA started her freshman year, when she first was involved in the campaigns. “SGA affects the most amount of students, and I was concerned about this,” she said. “I asked myself, ‘How can I leave this a greater and better institution than it was when I got here?’” She said she became interested in running for SGA and was approached by Brandon Remmert, a senior in political science and English and one of the campaign managers for SPARK. “I had been with SGA campaigns since freshman year,” Remmert said. “I really wanted to get involved this year and I heard Courtney was interested in running.” Vick said she had a difficult time finding running mates before Gearin and King came along. “After talking to a few people, I was a little discouraged, because I thought we could do well, but I needed running mates,” Vick said. “At lunch one day, a mutual friend suggested that I ask Q (King), and I thought he would be perfect. “Max came at a great time, too. He was really excited about having one of his SGA bills passed.” Remmert said he was excited to work with this group of people. “Everyone was so genuine,” he said. “They want (to run) because they genuinely have concerns and want to see things improved.” Vick said she and her running mates are really focused on making UT a better place for students, and the campaign has many policies that the group thinks will help achieve this goal. “I have had many students tell me how difficult it is to get to class from the Fort,” Vick said. “We want to extend the bus route into the Fort Sanders area to free up parking and to be more environmentally friendly.” Vick said the SPARK campaign also wants to make information about construction on campus readily available to students. “We want to create a website called masterplan.utk.edu that will show current construction projects around campus and any information we have about future construction projects,” she said. Vick said they also want to improve UT’s main website, utk.edu, to focus more on news and highlighting students. “This is what future students are going to see,” she said. The SPARK campaign has some other ideas

to improve technology on campus as well. “We want to create a standardized e-book (something like a Kindle), where students can purchase all their text books,” Vick said. “This will be more environmentally friendly and will be healthier for students, because they won’t have to carry all their books around. But students will still have the option to purchase regular textbooks.” SPARK members also want to create more opportunities for students to recycle, both on campus and in the Fort. Another major policy point for this group is alleviating the traffic at TRECS. “We want TRECS and HPER to be used simultaneously,” Vick said. “Right now, HPER is really not used for students working out.” As far as academics goes, Vick and the SPARK campaign are working on projects to make graduating on time easier for students. “We are working on the current SGA’s endeavor to extend the HOPE scholarship into the summer,” Vick said. “This would (help) students graduate on time, because many students want to take summer classes, but they can’t afford them. “We also want to standardize general education requirements so it will be easier for students to change their major.” Vick, an SGA member since her freshman year, has been involved with Freshman Council, Traditions Committee and the Government Affairs committee in SGA. She is also active in her sorority, Delta Gamma, Panhellenic, Student Alumni Associates and the Volunteer Channel. Gearin, also an SGA member, has served as an SGA senator for fraternity park and is involved in his fraternity. King is also involved in many organizations on campus, including POSE, the Minority Achievement Program, Student Alumni Associates and Me4UT. Vick said this wealth of involvement will help the SPARK campaign reach students all across campus. “We are all completely different and involved in different areas,” Vick said. “We want to utilize this to extend our experience into the community.” Remmert also sees this as a strength for SPARK. “This group of people is amazing, and they all have their own interests that add to the campaign,” he said. “One member, who is an engineering student, came up with our main points (powering academics, charging campus life and igniting university outreach), because it takes power, a charge and something to ignite to create an actual spark.” Remmert said he thinks the SPARK slogan, “Energize SGA,” shows what the SPARK campaign wants to accomplish. “Everyone has a lot of excitement during campaign week, but that usually goes away when campaigns are over,” he said. “We want to keep the same excitement for SGA going all year long.” Vick and the SPARK campaign encourage all students to contact them with questions or suggestions on their website, www.sparkut.com, or on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

• Photo courtesy of Reach

Robert Davis Staff Writer As the Student Government Association campaign week kicks off, Ross Rowland, Courtney Sharp and Drew Shapiro have a busy week before them. Campaign week began Wednesday and continues until voting begins on April 5 and Reach members will be busy bolstering their platform. “I am running for the presidential candidate of the Reach campaign for SGA,” Rowland said. “A lot of times, people see SGA as a branch that is responsible for reaching out to people and making sure there is communication between students and SGA. The primary goal for president is to be the liaison of SGA and the student voice to the administrators. I’ve grown up through my college tenure with SGA. I’ve seen it grow, develop and change. And that experience can help me mold SGA into a great organization students can utilize.” Ross Rowland, an undecided junior, has no lack of experience. Having served SGA, as well as several other campus organizations, for three years, he said he feels he has the ability to handle this position. “Currently I sit as senate chairperson,” Rowland said. “I’ve been on the executive committee of SGA for three years now. I was freshman council chair. I have been SGA commissioner of safety, which is responsible for safety initiative on campus. I also sit as the Tennessee Higher Education Commission representative for the Tennessee system.” Rowland’s close work with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission has helped him to adopt his main platform of the campaign — getting the Hope scholarship approved for students to use during the summer term. “I want to focus on the Hope Lottery scholarship and extend it into the summer,” Rowland said. “It’s been a pet project of mine for several years now, and we’ve had great success this year with lobbying the legislature.” Alongside Rowland is Courtney Sharp, junior in Spanish, who is running for vice president of SGA. “As vice president, you are the president of senate, our main governing body,” Sharp said. “You are also the chairman of freshman council.” Similar to Rowland, Sharp has held various positions with SGA, including freshman council, freshman council advisor, senate secretary and press secretary/historian on the senate executive board. An idea Sharp wants to continue implementing if elected is called “Senate Blitz,” in which senators will have times to meet with the constituents they represent. “The Senate Blitz is a really good way

to get senators out talking to their constituents,” Sharp said. “If you have problems, don’t complain about it only during elections. Get in touch with your senator and let them research the subject and fix it for you.” The most important platform for Sharp has to deal with is campus safety. “We know safety has been an issue on campus,” said Sharp. “I know from being in the Fort and then having to walk to Cumberland (Avenue), you can feel very unsafe very quickly. UT has tried to fix the problem by putting up the blue light system. We want to establish a reverse textalert system. No matter where you are, running or hiding, you can send a text and receive help in a short amount of time.” The third member of the executive committee of Reach is Student Services director candidate, Drew Shapiro, senior in history. “I see that the Student Services director is mainly in charge of two things: to help organize the Student Services branch and to help plan events for the committees that make up the branch,” Shapiro said. “The Student Services branch is consisted of an executive board and nine different committees that help facilitate interaction with the student body.” Shapiro has worked with SGA on the Volunteer Services Committee, which represents SGA at events like Relay for Life, as well as City of Knoxville’s Student Advisory Board, which represents students to city leadership. “I am running for this position because I see a gap between SGA and the student body,” Shapiro said. “Student Services director has the opportunity to fix this gap by having more interaction with the student body. I want SGA to truly represent the student body, and by starting at the source of interaction, more of the student body can be involved with SGA.” The third platform for the campaign deals with student parking on campus. “We believe that SGA should truly represent the student body, and we plan on doing this by addressing a major concern of the students: parking,” Shapiro said. “We have many ideas to help the situation ranging from posting the rules and times for specific parking areas to changing the way students appeal citations. We also want to reach up to the administration. We believe students should have a direct voice with the administration so important issues can be fixed in a timely manner.” Voting begins April 5 at 7 a.m. More information on Reach can be found on its website, www.reachutk.com/, or on its Facebook page, Reach UT. “We really have the opportunity to be the student’s voice and tell the faculty about problems they had no idea existed,” Sharp said.


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