Members of the IU Student Association campaign tickets debate on how they plan to serve students better, rather than how to spend student fees on extravagances for IUSA members.
At IUSA’s town hall meeting Tuesday evening, each ticket discussed how a restructuring of IUSA, specifically budget revisions, will allow them to give back to IU students and encourage them to be involved with the organization.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re running — because we do want to increase involvement,” President of Engage for IUSA junior Michelle Long said.
Although the Psych Up ticket has initiatives for sustainability and diversity on campus, it plans to allocate the majority of the IUSA funds toward psychological counseling programs on campus, Vice President freshman Ethan Yde said.
Samuel Patterson of the Refund Supreme ticket said they think the student fee should be less money, so students are not paying for IUSA executives to be given scholarships. He called it disgusting that IUSA is the only organization that uses money in its budget to give scholarships to its own members.
However, members of the Empower IU said the scholarships for students are beneficial to both IUSA and IU students because it allows for a more diverse group of individuals to have executive positions. They said students with a low socio-economic status who would otherwise need to spend their time working are then able to have an IUSA position.
Members of IGNITE said there are alternatives to decreasing IUSA's budget. They said increasing IU's revenue by doing things, such as selling alcohol at sporting events is one method to do so.
Focus for IUSA President junior Brandon Sakbun said his ticket wants to use the funds to engage in cross-campus collaboration. He said the ticket wants to work with organizations like Safe Sisters and Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault that are not given as much funding as IUSA.
“We’re all here for the same reason — to make IU a better place,” Sakbun said.
