The Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president debate was held virtually Sunday ahead of the start of voting Monday. Credit: Jessica Langer| Lantern reporter
Nearly 100 people gathered in a Zoom meeting room Sunday for Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government president and vice president debate.
The presidential candidates focused on mental health resources, student safety and the cost of higher education, while the vice-presidential candidates discussed how their administrations will promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the recruitment of new USG members, their plans to work with USG’s general assembly and collaboration with Ohio State students outside of the organization.
Jacob Chang is running for student body president with Anna Valerius on the ticket for vice president against Maddie Carson for president with Sri Uppalapati for vice president.
Voting will open Monday at noon and end Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. Students will be able to vote online on the USG website.
Advocacy
“I want to really emphasize that we are going to be talking about a lot of different subjects within this conversation today, and also that you can see all of our faces, but we can’t see all of yours,” Valerius, a third-year in political science, said. “So, I want to emphasize that we are here as humans as well.”
Carson, current USG chair of the undergraduate caucus, said she and Uppalapati, current USG director of academic affairs, want to highlight their policy to support victims and survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence on campus. They want to increase the funding of the Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio.
SARNCO has two on-campus advocates for victims and survivors of sexual violence, located at 33 W. 11th Avenue. The advocates are not employed by the university and are a confidential resource, meaning they are not required to report incidents to the university’s Office of Institutional Equity.
Carson, a third-year in industrial systems engineering, said their policy will revise the education program all first-year students are required to take, “Buck-I-Care About Consent,” to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community and include more information about resources on campus for sexual assault victims and survivors.
Chang, the current USG senior director of operations, said he and Valerius want to emphasize their policy on the diversity, equity and inclusion training offered to first-year students. He said the training should equip students with the knowledge of resources available to help them address any hate crime or racism they experience and inform students about how marginalized groups face discrimination.
“That’s something we need to ask our student body to make sure they’re aware they can support each other, support themselves and report all these issues in the manner that our university can see and also address the adequate manner,” Chang, a third-year in psychology and political science, said.
Mental Health
Carson said the university spends an average of $88 per student on mental health compared to the national average of $200 per student, according to a 2019 Associated Press review of three dozen public universities. A survey conducted in December showed that more than half of the students at Ohio State screened positively for clinical anxiety and 33 percent for clinical depression.
As her solution, Carson said she and Uppalapati, a third-year in engineering physics, would like to have embedded counselors in each college available to those college’s students. Some university colleges, such as the College of Social Work, already have embedded counselors.
“There’s a lot to be done to better support students’ mental health, and that is why Sri and I’s campaign is centralized around student wellness,” Carson said.
From his personal experience, Chang said he and Valerius want to highlight the mental health resources on campus, so students know where to go when they need help. He said there should also be counselors equipped with language skills to accommodate students who speak English as a second language.
“We cannot only just have a population of CCS counselors that represent or mirror the student body but also have counselors who are equipped with the language skill and life experience and empathy to be able to help students understand their lived experience,” Chang said.
Public Safety
Carson said she and Uppalapati want to increase off-campus lighting, increase partnerships with landlords for better security systems and partner with companies like Ring to get student discounts on home-security items.
Chang said he and Valerius want to expand the number of blue light emergency boxes on campus, increase off-campus lighting fixtures, provide more security devices such as pepper spray in safety kits from the university and have the Student Wellness Center provide self-defense courses.
University Police typically offer Rape Aggression Defense courses for women aged 14 and older, but haven’t offered any since the pandemic began. There are no other self-defense courses offered at the university.
Access and Affordability
Carson said for more affordable education, their campaign would like to expand the Buckeye Food Alliance — the on-campus food pantry available to all students for free — to all Ohio State regional campuses, create a financial wellness tool for students that integrate student expenses to help them plan their financial future, decrease tuition and unnecessary fees and ensure University President Kristina M. Johnson’s promise of debt-free undergraduate graduation in a decade is kept.
“This will be a commitment that we need to start working towards to now, and something that I will work hard to hold President Johnson accountable to starting as soon as possible,” Carson said.
To make college more affordable for students, Chang said he and Valerius want to create a central resource where students can easily access and find financial coaching, good housing spaces off-campus and join a textbook exchange so students do not have to pay for textbooks.
Valerius said she and Chang want their policy to increase student awareness of and connectivity with USG and for it to be seen as a way for students to share their voices and have a long-lasting impact at Ohio State.
“We want to make sure that we’re creating a system and a structure that will work long after we are gone from this university because oftentimes what we see is change that happens that is not permanent and that does not make long-lasting change, and personally, I do not think that that is the change that I want to see,” Valerius said.
Uppalapati said he and Carson want students to see USG as a resource and platform to benefit the student organizations that exist on campus.
“If USG can use its platform to make sure that it’s clear that it’s a resource that students can access, I truly believe that more students will be able to not just come to USG, but we’ll be able to find more student organizations that we can uplift their work,” Uppalapati said.
