Profiles of the 2017 ASWSU presidential tickets
February 27, 2017
Zachary Anders and Kai Amos
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Zachary Anders and Kai Amos declared student fees, university accountability and participatory leadership to be the main concerns of their campaign.
Anders said he thinks the amount of mandatory fees WSU students incur is unnecessary and that he would work to ensure all student fees are reflective of the services students use.
Anders said students should not have to pay for certain university projects. He said his administration would put in place policy to keep the university from looking to students to pay for capital investment and remodels.
“There’s communication and then there’s action here,” he said, “and the action is going to be, ‘No, we simply cannot afford to continue to put these fees on our back and we’re not going to do it in the future.’ ”
To Anders and Amos, university accountability means students know why something is happening and have a voice in its completion. He said the first thing he intends to do is ask WSU President Kirk Schulz to reopen Martin Stadium to the public.
Anders said when he went on his prospective student visit, he was able to walk onto the stadium’s field during the tour, which was a factor in his decision to attend WSU.
“I couldn’t do that at Autzen [Stadium] in Oregon,” Anders said. “I couldn’t do that in Colorado, and I most certainly couldn’t do that at UW.”
Anders said he would also like to hold the administration accountable for funding all capital projects. He said the University of Colorado student government is an example of students who have told their administration the students would not be paying for remodels and capital projects anymore.
“There really is no line that says, ‘Alright, we stop at this,’ ” Anders said. “It could just keep getting worse and worse and worse.”
In order to make sure the student body is not used “like a piggy bank,” Anders said he would enact a policy that would require every student fee to affect the entire student body. If it does not, ASWSU will not pass it and the university will need to fund its own building projects, he said.
Both Anders and Amos said they believe the current ASWSU leadership is not working as effectively as possible. Anders said his opponents, who have five years of combined ASWSU experience between them, have had more than enough time to create change on campus but have not delivered on their promises.
Amos said the ASWSU executive budget has a large number of unnecessary expenses that could be cut back, and a smaller executive staff would accomplish that. She also said she believes being an executive comes with a balance of behind-the-scenes work and showing tangible change to the students.
Anders was the election board chair last year and achieved a historic 28.5 percent voter turnout, according to the results posted by ASWSU. He has also served as the vice president of the Residence Hall Association.
Amos is currently the editor-in-chief of the Chinook yearbook. She has been an Alive! Orientation counselor, a residence adviser and has won a number of awards for her leadership skills. She said she believes that her experience at WSU qualifies her to see ASWSU from an outside perspective.
Though they would like to make many changes to the way ASWSU currently runs, Anders said he has respect for the current administration and thinks they have done a good job communicating with Schulz during their term, especially in representing the students during his transition process.
Jordan Frost and Garrett Kalt
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Jordan Frost and Garrett Kalt, who have five years of ASWSU experience between them, are running under the campaign slogan “changing the conversation.” Their primary focuses are safety, academics, transparency and community.
Frost and Kalt said they chose these four focuses after a conversation in which they discussed everything they wanted to change about WSU.
“Everything that we do as ASWSU can fall under these four pillars,” Kalt said.
Frost and Kalt said they believe ASWSU has a responsibility to ensure student safety, and that preventative measures are necessary to guarantee a safe campus for everyone. Frost said he wants to create a universal sexual assault protocol for the entire university.
“It’s not an ASWSU solution,” he said. “It’s an ASWSU partnership.”
Frost said a full-time sexual assault prevention director has recently been brought on and has been connecting with different groups on campus and working with the university to come up with prevention plans.
They want to focus on academics because, at the end of the day, students are at WSU to get an education, Frost said.
On their campaign website, Frost talks about how he plans to create an interactive four-year plan to help students manage their time at WSU.
“We want to make it so that you walk out of your advising appointment feeling like you accomplished something,” Kalt said in their campaign video.
The Frost-Kalt campaign also aims to preserve and continue to build on the community and Cougar pride for which WSU is known.
During a joint interview on KUGR with opponent Zachary Anders last week, in response to a comment about students not knowing what ASWSU has done for students, Frost said ASWSU needs to connect with students by responding to need, putting more information out to the public and getting people to engage in the voting process.
“We don’t need to change ASWSU because it’s not working,” he said. “We need to better communicate what ASWSU is doing on behalf of students every day.”
To be more transparent, Frost and Kalt said they want to make sure students know where their money is going.
“[ASWSU] spent a lot of money internally,” Frost said. “I’d like to spend more money externally.”
Kalt said he and Frost will never stop reaching out to students to bridge the communication gap if they win. He said there will always be ways they can improve on what they are doing and they intend to stay proactive for their entire term.
“Garrett [Kalt] and I have shown time and time again that when an issue comes up … we will act on it,” Frost said.
Kalt said their relationship started out as Frost being a mentor to Kalt. They went on to become close friends and then colleagues as both of them took on leadership roles within ASWSU.
This year, Frost served as the ASWSU chief of staff under President Taylor Christenson, while Kalt has served as an all-campus senator for two years. Frost said his and Kalt’s ASWSU experience is a huge part of why they are equipped for these positions.
“There’s a big learning curve,” Frost said. “There’s a lot of little things that come up day to day.”
Because of the connections and experience he already has, Frost said he and Kalt could “hit the ground running from Day One.”