The Student Government campaign cycle has been shortened from a two and a half week period that took place after spring break to a one week cycle in March, after the student senate voted to change the statutes on Dec. 2, 2014. 

Student senate advisor Laura Stott said the change was a result of candidate’s falling grades. 

“It was right after midterms, it was tough to be attentive to both your campaign and your grades,” Stott said. “The staff was in agreement, the students really wanted it and that’s why it was changed.”

Rusty Mau, student body president and Devan Riley, student body vice president lobbied Student Senate for the change after taking office.

The transition will increase candidates academic success by decreasing the time spent on campaigning, Riley said.

“We realized after our campaign how stressful it was that it needed to be cut to a week,” Riley said. “It’s a lot to ask of a student to take two full weeks out of their academic career and campaign, especially for the student body officer races. It consumes your life. It’s everything you do for two weeks because you want to get elected so badly.” 

The shortened campaign period will also require student body officer team tickets to be creative as they have to reach out to as many students as possible in one week, Mau said.

“How do you reach out to a majority of the student body, how do you get the majority of students to vote for you?” Mau said.”You have to figure out what’s your central brand, what’s your image.”

The change will allow the candidates to rejuvenate over spring break and it gives Student Government an additional month to transition, which in turn will enhance the effectiveness of Student Government, according to Mau. 

“Everyone has their different networks on campus as well as their different strengths and experiences so it’s who can reach the most students in this time period and show them why a vote is important,” Mau said. 

The change has pros and cons, according to Meredith Mason, who is a candidate for the office of the student body vice president and executive assistant for the executive committee. 

“I think it’s good overall for the candidates sanity-wise, but it does make it difficult to talk to the most student organizations and really have time to feel like you’ve covered everyone you want to talk to,” Mason said. 

The way statues are written do not allow for any prior planning for campaigning, according to Jasmine Scheitler, communications director for the executive committee. Technically, students are not supposed to schedule meetings with student organizations before the day campaigning starts.

“Looking at changing that in statues and allowing a two week time period before campaigns that you’re allowed to organize yourself or get your team together and schedule meetings would be beneficial for candidates,” Scheitler said. 

Cody Long, student senate president, said that while he is excited to go all out for a full week and be done, it will be difficult.

Candidates had to begin scheduling speeches and events no earlier than Monday, otherwise it would be considered a pre-planning campaign violation. 

“It’s literally a week to plan and execute a campaign that could ultimately take 35,000 voters. It’s pretty daunting and pretty near impossible to do in a week’s time.” 

Nute Thompson, a college of humanities and social sciences student senator, said he understands the mental and physical toll that executive officers experience during the campaign, but that candidates for other positions need the extra time to reach out to their constituents. 

“As a senator with much less notoriety, for our campaigns it would be nice to have the extra time to get the name out and the publicity that the less prestigious offices don’t necessarily command,” Thompson said.

Mau said that having three strong tickets for the student body president and vice president race enhances the image and effectiveness of student government.

“I think that student government is in a great position this year,” Mau said. “I really think any of those tickets will do a great job of continuing the success and influence we’ve built this year.”