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Thursday, Oct. 31
The Indiana Daily Student

Meet the IUSA candidates: BtownUnited

Neil Kelty, presidential candidate

Student governance is nothing new for Neil Kelty.

Involved in student government since sixth grade, Kelty served in high school as student body vice president for two years and currently is the IU Student Association chief of staff.

Upon entering IU, Kelty was interested in joining IUSA, yet was first approached by a friend from high school who asked him to be involved with a ticket. The ticket eventually merged onto Peter SerVaas’ winning Btown ticket, in whose administration Kelty served as executive director of new media and technology.

“Peter’s definitely a mentor. The iUnity campaign definitely brought us a lot closer together. He and I share the same vision for IUSA in that we really should be focusing on projects that are close to home for students that we can actually make a difference on,” Kelty said.

During the current school year, Kelty serves as chief of staff in Michael Coleman’s iUnity administration, spending 35-40 hours in the office weekly, he said.

“It’s a lot of time. It kills your social life, but I’ve met so many great people. Most of my best friends are in IUSA,” he said.

One such friend is Barrett Tenbarge, the vice president for administration candidate on Kelty’s ticket. Tenbarge and Kelty first met in December 2009, when then-IUSA President SerVaas introduced the two.

“He’s become one of my best friends at IU,” Kelty said. “We work so well together. We’re on the same page. We have the same goals, the same vision for IUSA.”
Kelty and Tenbarge spoke late last summer to see if launching a campaign was something they wanted to do.

“We decided that if we weren’t successful, we wouldn’t run,” Kelty said. “If we didn’t get anything done, I didn’t feel like I should be running.”

As the school year began, and the two realized that most of the iUnity administration platforms could be accomplished, they decided to form the BtownUnited ticket.
Kelty looked within IUSA when building his executive ticket, which he had rounded out by Thanksgiving break.

“I like to surround myself with people that are self-starters. Katie, Jeff and Jana think very different than Barrett and I. I think that’s one of the big things we tried to do, get a mix of personalities. I really looked for people who had experience working on an IUSA campaign or working in IUSA,” he said.

Kelty views experience as a key to his past and future success.

“As iUnity we ran on the fact that if you elect a group that had experience in IUSA they would get a lot of things done. I think six for six platforms is a pretty good indicator that that worked out well,” he said. “I like that our ticket is built up organically through IUSA. I think that’s very important for being successful.”

Kelty said prior experience in IUSA has taught him to make more realistic goals.

“You learn to figure out where your sphere of influence is, where you can effect change. And it’s campus if you really think about it. That’s where we are respected. That’s where we have relationships. That’s where we’ve gotten things done this year. I think we’re best served using the connections and relationships we build on campus to do stuff close to home,” he said.

Despite the fact that BtownUnited is made up many current IUSA members, Kelty stresses that his ticket is not more of the same.

“The Btown administration, the iUnity administrations are very different, and the BtownUnited will look very different from both of those. We haven’t remained stale. It’s important to switch things up every year.”

With more than 250 student volunteers and after visiting more than 40 student organizations, Kelty is confident in his ticket, he said.

“I think we’re ready to go. We’re ready for Election Day.”

Katie Tetrick, vice-presidential candidate for Congress

For Katie Tetrick, the implementation of a fall break held a little more significance.
Tetrick, a junior majoring in psychology, Spanish and Liberal Arts & Management, helped bring a fall break to campus as current IU Student Association chief of fall break.

“When it passed, I was pleasantly surprised,” Tetrick said. “There had been so much animosity in the past that I really didn’t think it would pass. But I think we finally created a platform that satisfied the University’s needs, as well as the students’.”
Since then, Tetrick has joined the BtownUnited ticket as candidate for vice president for congress.

After attending sessions of congress and speaking with those involved in it, Tetrick said she believes congress could run a lot more efficiently.

“Things are not going through the proper procedures with resolutions. Right now there are just a lot of nit-picky steps that are being missed. So people in these positions feel like they don’t have anything to do and that their position pretty much falls to the ground. They’re not doing anything because it’s all going through one person,” she said.

Many congress members are overly keen on passing resolutions, instead of creating ones themselves, Tetrick said.

“I want them to know that we really want and encourage them to make their own resolutions. I feel that will give them more a hands-on role in changing our campus,” she said. 

She also said she wants to make sure that executives present resolutions to congress without bias.

“Congress is there to keep us in check. It’s all in the way resolutions are presented. I think sometimes unintentionally, people will give their feelings on the resolutions and then their influence by that. I really want to make sure that they have the power and we’re very, very careful about how things are presented as to not influence them,” she said.

To help usher in these changes, Tetrick will use experience she has gained over the last year working in IUSA.

“I think people underestimate how imperative it is to have experience in IUSA. It’s scary to think about, someone coming in with no experience. I think that could become very problematic. Luckily, we all have relationships with administrators and are on very good terms with all of the administrators we have worked with, so we don’t have to spend that time getting to know each other and understanding how things work,” she said.

Barrett Tenbarge, Vice-presidential candidate for administration

Candidate for vice president for administration Barrett Tenbarge said he is looking to make the IU Student Association more project and student initiative-based.

“We want to make it a much more passion and project-oriented culture. Our time isn’t as effective actually carrying out the individual projects. Our time is much more effective in the coaching and mentoring role,” Tenbarge said.

He envisions smaller teams of IUSA members working on specific projects with the support and guidance of upper executives, he said.

Tenbarge, a sophomore double majoring in entrepreneurship and business, economics and public policy, has been involved with IUSA since his freshman year, when he served as executive director of special projects.

This year, he has served in the iUnity administration as chief of internal affairs and attributes the administration’s success to a solid model.

“What made us successful was the model that we followed, going after projects and concrete initiatives. Having a good idea isn’t enough. It has to be realistic. You have to have vetted it with campus administrators. You have to have relationships in place to work with those administrators,” he said.

Tenbarge said he takes pride in his work and experience in IUSA.

“I think somebody who has previous involvement shouldn’t be looked on negatively. I think it should be impressive that someone has the commitment to get involved in an organization freshman year and work their way up the ranks,” he said.

For other tickets with less direct IUSA experience, Tenbarge had a message.

“To me, I say welcome to IUSA. No matter the result, I hope they stay involved. I hope they do have a passion for student government,” he said. 

To student voters, Tenbarge encourages critical analysis.

“When you hear about tickets, when you hear platforms, don’t take what you’re hearing at face value. Ultimately, is it not only ‘Is this a good idea?’ but ‘Can this realistically happen?’ and ‘Is it IUSA’s job to make it happen?’”

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