Majority Greek ACTION ticket shifts into power
The clash between diversity-oriented tickets and primarily Greek-oriented tickets in student government has become a common theme in UCSU in past semesters.
In the wake of the majority Greek ACTION ticket’s victory last week in the UCSU elections, the prevailing feeling is one of mutual respect.
“We’re all about ensuring that we’re forwarding our overall goals as UCSU representatives,” Tri-executive Charles Gilford said. “The two tickets came from different camps, but they have the same type of mission and goals. I think they will be able to work with one another.”
Gilford does not believe that any major conflicts will occur, but is confident that any conflicts that do arise can be overcome. Gilford ran on a ticket of unifying the campus last semester. The Unity ticket also happened to be primarily diversity-based.
“We’re going to manifest our original purpose, which is to have a unified campus,” Gilford said,
Last semester students elected the entire UNITY ticket comprised of people of similar backgrounds as those of this semester’s RiSE ticket. Last semester’s equivalent of the ACTION ticket was the VALUE ticket.
In fall of 2006 it was the GOLD ticket and the FIRST CLASS tickets once again pitching RiSE’s Medhat Ahmed and ACTION’s Chance Heath.
In the spring of 2006 the MARVEL ticket took on what would become the winning ticket, CLASS ACT, comprised of such student leaders as former Legislative Council vice president and Interfraternity Council president Chris Kline as well as Tri-executives and Greeks Andy Aitchison and Charles Johnson and Representatives-at-large and fellow Greeks Jessica Langfeldt and Scott McEachron, among others.
Hadley Brown, another of the Tri-executives from last semester’s Unity ticket, is looking forward to working with this semester’s new group of officers
“My intention is to work to the best of my ability with as many people as possible,” Brown said. “I think other people are the same way,”
Brown said she is optimistic about how well the two groups will get along, but doesn’t believe that it will be anything along the lines of what happened last spring.
“There will be issues because there are always issues,” Brown said. “But nothing like the Fair and Equal Access Bill.”
The Fair and Equal Access Bill, supported by ACTION ticket member Chance Heath, would have shut down UCSU cost centers if they did not recognize the Greeks as an official student group. The bill was was eventually dropped, although a modified version of it passed as an amendment to the appropriations bill. However, it was representative of the underlying rift between the Greek and diversity factions of UCSU.
Heath said that he does not consider the ACTION ticket to be a Greek ticket.
“It has nothing to do with Greek or non-Greek, but rather overall priorities for the campus,” Heath said. “98 percent of issues we deal with have nothing to do with Greeks. The action ticket worked hard to be representative of many facets of the student body and I think students recognized that and had a better time confiding in our platform.”
Heath said he is trying to be optimistic, but that realism still has a place in the student government.
“I always try to maintain optimism that there won’t be conflict, but that is obviously too idealistic,” Heath said. “I think a good goal for this year would be to tackle conflict and find a healthy solution.”
Contact Campus Press Reporter Rob Ryan at rryan@thecampuspress.com
