I am running for many reasons but mainly because I believe Student Government’s role is to advocate for the students, represent them and listen to their concerns; right now, I don’t feel Student Government is doing it. I won’t sit here and tout all of my “leadership” experience or why I deserve to be the next student body president, but I will focus on the issues and the ideas I have to make this campus a better place.

The two biggest issues I want to focus on, if elected, are lowering the cost of textbooks and improving athletics. Both hurt students and affect everyone. We have a lot of room for improvement and tons of solutions to make them both better for the students. With textbooks we will work to establish a rental system as soon as possible (something like Appalachian State uses) where the costs will be lower for every student. Also, we will work to make our textbooks tax free. It is not fair that students miss the sales tax holiday and are forced to suffer because we enroll later. Furthermore, we will work on adding a section to our class evaluations where students can rank the effectiveness of their textbooks and publish the results for everyone to see. We will also work towards policies that encourage professors to use course packs and online textbooks.

With athletics we also have a lot of solutions. One of the biggest things is the student body president’s seat on the Board of Trustees where our administration’s jobs are scrutinized and the students’ opinions are represented. As student body president, I will ensure those opinions are hears.

We will also work to get board bucks at the RBC; work to get the Hurricane’s security to stop harassing us when we go for a game; improve the loyalty points system; make the “group seating” a more fair process; and work towards getting a brand-new online system for requesting tickets. (For the complete platform check out www.ches4sbp.com)

The most important thing, though, is making sure the student body president and Student Government are working for the students and respecting the students’ wishes. It really doesn’t matter what the student body president or the administration wants; this job is for the students.

The administration and the chancellor have the money and power to push ideas, but we can be louder and as student body president I will guarantee your voice will be heard in the Board of Trustees meetings, at the legislature where they just raised our tuition and all around campus. After all, we pay their salaries and this is our University, let’s bring it back to the students!