Editorial Board endorsement: Big Ten for IUSA

Editor's note: The IDS Editorial Board arrived at its endorsement of Big Ten for IUSA administration through a process of separate interviews with each of the running tickets’ executive staff and a Board vote. We acknowledge that members of the Editorial staff are running on two of these tickets and as a result, they were not present during the interviews of tickets outside of their own and were not present for any discussion of this endorsement.

Too often, candidates for the IUSA executive branch seem indistinguishable. This year, however, one ticket stands out as excellent.

After the IDS Editorial Board sat down for 45-minute interviews with all three tickets, it was clear to us that Big Ten offers the most substantial platform policies and the most focused program for accomplishing its well-defined objectives.

Here’s why.

The Big Ten platform
The ticket’s Medical Amnesty initiative would greatly improve student welfare. Big Ten plans to lobby the Indiana Legislature to remove legal consequences for illegal consumption when students seek medical attention for alcohol and drug use. If successful, the plan could change students’ access to critical health care and potentially save lives.

Having already established connections in the state Legislature for the amnesty proposal, the Big Ten candidates are well-positioned to ensure the goal comes to fruition.

We also endorse their plan to reform wasteful spending. Whereas BtownUnited would make little effort to reform spending and reviveIU’s plan to reroute funds into microgrants seems tenuous at best, the Big Ten ticket offers real promises to cut overhead expenses to 25 percent of the total budget.

The funds freed by the reduction of overhead expenses will promote tangible initiatives such as its Student Recreational Sports Center sustainability plan and an app for campus mapping.

While we have some reservations about the extent of the environmental impact afforded by Big Ten’s SRSC sustainability plan, it certainly offers some energy savings and might well raise student awareness about the possibilities of more impacting sources of clean energy.

With the University pressing ahead with an eText initiative regardless of who is elected, Big Ten’s plan to lobby the state Legislature to pass legislation granting a weekend holiday for textbook purchases would benefit IU students who will doubtlessly continue to prefer traditionally bound books.

Some will criticize the Big Ten ticket because its best platform issues (such as Medical Amnesty and Tax-Free Textbooks) rely on the votes of state legislators. But substantial improvements require substantial work, and by lobbying for IU students’ interests at the highest levels, Big Ten will accomplish its elected duty of making outstanding improvements in IU students’ lives.

And even if these central platform issues were to fail in the legislature, we still believe Big Ten’s remaining, less-challenging initiatives offer students the most substantial gains when compared to the other tickets. 

The competition
While all of the tickets advance some valuable ideas, Big Ten emerges as the clear choice among them.

BtownUnited, headed by the current government’s Chief of Staff Neil Kelty, puts forward fewer ideas that will improve campus life. Moreover, crucial components of the BtownUnited platform would require little work by Btown’s executives. 

For example, the ticket’s plan to reduce the cost of textbooks is not really its plan at all. As the ticket even acknowledges on its webpage, its executives’ “work” on an eText plan merely involves listening to University officials detail their plans: “IU’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Brad Wheeler and his Chief of Staff Nik Osborne have sat down with us to explain the work they are doing in bringing this new technology to IU.”

Why should students elect a student administration whose so-called platform issues are already being carried out by other officials?

And Btown’s promise to try to attract a 2012 presidential debate to IU does not distinguish its ticket. Any responsible administration — and many other campus organizations — will be doing nothing less by default.

The reviveIU ticket, led by Danny Alexander, is susceptible to critique on similar grounds. Its platform vaguely promises to foster “collaborative and open dialogue” and “include the student body in our decision-making processes.”

The ticket focuses a great deal on promoting a broadly defined notion of inclusivity as a central component of a reviveIU administration.

But inclusivity is not in itself something that can be done. We would prefer to see IUSA advance big ideas that benefit all students rather than simply discuss inclusivity.

Unfortunately, reviveIU’s plan to include a wide range of IU students by giving largely unsupervised microgrants to students is not a solid proposal. Scarce resources should be carefully allocated and monitored to maximize the results of investments.

Justin Kingsolver’s second campaign
Since running for IUSA president last spring on the Kirkwood ticket, Justin Kingsolver has greatly improved his appeal as a candidate. A good administration must take office on the first day with a clear sense of what it will accomplish.

The past year has given Kingsolver the opportunity to take the first steps toward developing an idealistic yet realistic platform.

These efforts to plan substantial policies have paid off and made Big Ten the best of the three options.

All of the tickets have advanced some good proposals, and the success of a Big Ten administration must include adding these to its agenda.