Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Five minutes with some chick
Taylor Allbright comes next, and she and Van Nguyen got their poses mixed up. Sitting around smiling for a camera is the kind of role we put the ASUC President in. Crossing arms and looking down on people is clearly more of an EVP job.
DC: Turning to the senate, what role do you feel that party politics can play, what benefits do you think they can have and what can be some of the challenges that arise from that?
TA: Party politics can play a number of different roles. They can completely freeze the senate and prevent it from acting, they can provide a vehicle for the different opinions of the diverse communities on campus ... I feel that my role as the chair is to facilitate these conversations, to find common ground and move forward on that when you can but also to encourage healthy conflict that allows the senate to express the different views of the student body. Party politics should look like gang politics, not coversation facilitation! Conflict is supposed to be unhealthy! *sigh* Another opportunity lost.
DC: Turning to the budgeting process—last year the process was changed so a lot actually took place before the budgeting meeting. How do you feel that process worked and would you go about it in a similar way?
TA: I did not like last year's budgeting process. People had lots of secret meetings, there were lots of back-room ... smoke-room-filled type politics that went on last year ... I feel like in the end we did manage to make the process transparent, but we had to fight for that to happen. Does the ASUC have smoke-filled rooms? Or only smoke-room-filled? Maybe that's the problem with the ASUC... not enough smoking. Smoking is the only way to protect children's health, after all... who knows what else it can do?
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