2 parties emerge for this month's IUSA election

The IU Student Association announced its election candidates Thursday, and the two running parties are the Hoosier party and the High 5 party.\nThe IUSA elections committee held a mandatory all-candidates meeting Thursday night to discuss election procedures and rules, but the High 5 party failed to show up or contact the IUSA elections commissioner.\nIUSA Elections Commissioner Brad Allen said the elections commission will have to discuss the repercussions of the party's absence, but Allen said he doesn't think it will result in disqualification from the race.\nThe Hoosier party was represented by presidential candidate W.T. Wright, vice-presidential candidate Joe DeJean, treasurer candidate Alex Gutmann, vice president of congress candidate Chris Littel and various students running for congress. Alexandra Chtchedrina, who is running for the IUSA Aid Funding Board, also attended. Funding board candidates run independently of the two parties.\nThe Hoosier party is running under the same ticket as the incumbent and plans to follow through with some of the projects the current IUSA administration is working on, DeJean said.\nBut the party's executive candidates said they have some new plans of their own, too.\nDeJean, who is the current IUSA director of legislation relations, said the Hoosier party wants to change the "W policy" for dropping classes at the beginning of the semester. If elected, the administration wants to ease the policy by extending the drop deadline to three or four weeks into the semester before a student receives a "W" on their transcripts. They said they would also like to see the procedure available online, so students won't have to travel to multiple buildings on campus collecting signatures.\nWright, who is currently the assistant to the IUSA administration, said the Hoosier party also wants to improve the bus system by lobbying for more routes that run more frequently, especially in the evening.\nDeJean and Wright said the administration wants to implement an athletics loyalty system, so that students are rewarded with better seats when they attend more athletics events. The administration wants to see a student section established, but because Wright has seen the past four or five administrations make unfulfilled promises about student seating, he does not want to make a promise that can't be kept.\nChtchedrina said she thinks some changes need to be made on the funding board, and she has specific plans to execute them if elected.\n"(The IUSA Funding Board) basically decides what happens with the student-activities fees," she said.\nStudent organizations can ask the four-member board for funding for their organizations, events or projects, she said.\n"In the past year there have been some inconsistencies," she said. "My idea is to hold us to as high an ethical standard as possible."\nChtchedrina, a current IUSA intern, said the board has made "fiscally irresponsible" mistakes, such as not keeping minutes for meetings when the group is dealing with a budget of about $300,000.\nShe said the board needs a more specific procedure for approving funding. Right now, she said, things seem to be decided "on a whim," and there aren't records to review why certain groups are awarded 100 percent of their request while others only receive very low percents.\nIUSA Aid Funding Board Candidate Anthony Smith said he thinks his experience will be sufficient for whatever comes up on the funding board. He said he's on the committee for fee review, which decides the levels of various student activity fees.\nThe IUSA will host the executive candidate debates at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.\nStudents who want to get involved in campaigning should contact the party candidates. The current administration had more than 100 campaign volunteers and some of them were awarded positions as members of IUSA congress, directors of committees or unpaid interns for IUSA for their hard work, said Clark Kaericher, current vice president for congress. Student volunteers for the Hoosier party can e-mail votehoosier@gmail.com to get involved in campaigning. \nThe High 5 party was not available for comment. Presidential candidate Shane Whittington, treasurer candidate Ryan Moore and vice-presidential candidate Matt Jarson are running for the High 5 party. There is currently no vice-presidential candidate for the party.