Facing off: iUnity, Kirkwood tickets debate

Elections heated up for Kirkwood and iUnity Monday night when the two IU Student Association tickets met face to face to debate issues and describe platforms.

The debate, which was jointly sponsored by IU Student Television and the Indiana Daily Student, was moderated by Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, IDS Opinion editor and freshman Jarrod Lowery and IUSTV political correspondent and senior Alex Roy.

Tickets were given five minutes each for opening and closing statements and three minutes each to answer questions posed by moderators.

Candidates answered questions about communicating with students and faculty, managing funds and defining the purpose of IUSA’s executive branch.

In his opening statement, iUnity presidential candidate and junior Michael Coleman emphasized his experience and personal desire to lead.

“Indiana University has really blessed me, and with that I wanted to really leave my mark as president of IUSA,” Coleman said. “I believe it’s how you leave your mark that really defines you.”

iUnity’s arguments placed emphasis on its experience, as well as on its plans to continue progress made by the Btown administration, of which iUnity vice president for administration candidate Peter SerVaas is the current president. The ticket also spoke about its platform, with particular emphasis on its iConnect initiative, which would reach out to less represented campus groups.

Kirkwood presidential candidate and sophomore Justin Kingsolver contrasted iUnity’s experience with his ticket’s relative lack of previous IUSA participation.

“It’s been said that we’re the IUSA outsiders, and you know, I’m going to embrace that,” Kingsolver said.

Kingsolver went on to say that while he has experience as IUSA’s speaker of the house, his fellow candidates have experience in athletics, greek houses and other campus programs.

Kirkwood’s arguments focused on what it described as its ability to pinpoint problems students are truly interested in addressing. The ticket also emphasized the advantages of its fresh outlook and the value of changes it would make to the current IUSA executive branch structure.

Both presidential candidates said they were interested in running a clean election and debate.

“I will not discredit the other ticket at all, I know that they are trying to do the same thing,” Coleman said. “Whoever you elect, I just hope you’re making the best responsible decision that you can so that you know that you have students in office who are representing you to the best of their abilities when they’re speaking to your administration.”

Kingsolver also said he wanted to focus on helping students choose a ticket, not on tearing down the opposition.

“I definitely do want to reiterate what Michael said about not wanting to disparage each other, just wanting to provide a clear choice for the student body,” Kingsolver said.

But the debate was not without conflict, with tickets calling into question the opposition’s campaign strategies.

In his closing arguments, Kingsolver said iUnity’s conduct throughout the debate was characteristic of its campaign.

“iUnity did not lay out their six I’s, they bashed on Kirkwood’s five ideas, and unfortunately that’s the kind of negative politicking and negative campaigning that has mired IUSA in the past, and I’m just fed up with it,” Kingsolver said.

In response, SerVaas said iUnity’s campaign did not aim to personally attack the Kirkwood ticket, but to place emphasis on the differences between the two platforms.

“We think on a personal level these are phenomenal people and we would never attack them or anything, but this needs to be focused on the platform issues, so they can dissect and comment and criticize every one of our platforms,” SerVaas said. “I’m more than welcome to hear them dissect their platform issues, and we will do the same.”