Anthony Rodd
arodd@uwyo.edu
Both ASUW presidential tickets, ASUW affiliates and a handful of students gathered in the skylight lounge on Wednesday for a point-counter point hearing, and also to answer questions made by the audience.
Tyler Julian and Donatellia Austin are running for president and vice president, respectively, as well as Michael Rotellini and Tyler Wolfgang.
The 18 questions designed by the ASUW elections committee, covered important issues ranging from staff retention to sexual assault. One issue candidates discussed is how to go about resolving conflict within ASUW.
“Conflict is misunderstanding, and so coming from a place of understanding and understanding the duties of each branch and understanding where students come from will be important in resolving any conflict,” Julian said.
“Conflict will always occur, but its about taking a chance to look at different perspectives as an executive or as a senator… at the end of the day we need to realize we are here for the students and that is where our focus should be,” Rotellini said.
Candidates also discussed personal hurdles they would overcome if they did attain the presidency. Rotellini and Wolfgang both said time management would be their biggest hurdle, while Julian said his biggest hurdle will be checking his natural privilege.
“One of our biggest hurdles is going to be overcoming our natural biases and our natural privileges, and one of the things I am going to be working on overcoming is my privilege as a white male,” Julian said.
“My biggest personal hurdle will be to balance the position of being Vice-President and my school work, but I’m pretty much balancing that already with volunteering and being a senator for the college of education,” Wolfgang said.
After the primary debate, candidates were asked to answer student written questions, the first of which was about mental health wellness on campus.
One student asked, “How big of an issue is suicide on campus, and how will your campaign address the issue?”
“People should be able to get the help they need and resources they deserve, so one of the things we want to do is start up the student wellness advisery board and make sure we have more distressing events,” Rotellini said.
Julian also mentioned the student wellness advisory board, but said marketing also needs improvement.
“We want to assess how effective marketing and student access to the mental health resources has been on campus and improve upon that,” Julian said.
Another student asked, “What will you do to change the way the university handles sexual assault cases?”
“We want to make sure there is never any blaming the victim, and there is a comfortable and safe environment for a sexual assault victim… we also want to make sure we have resources ready to help these people,” Rotellini said.
Austin said as a member of the Residence Hall Association she has made reports of sexual assault and would like to make the process smoother.
“I am a very much an advocate for making sure the sexual assault reporting process is more streamlined and objective in its processing, as well as safer for students,” Austin said.
Voting for ASUW president and vice president begins Monday and extends through Wednesday at 5 p.m. The new president and vice president will be announced the same day at 6 p.m. in the Union Gardens.
