Candidates explain their goals and ambitions

Last week, The Daily Pennsylvanian's editorial board sat down with the three candidates for Undergraduate Assembly chairperson and asked them about what challenges they would face, issues they would tackle and visions they would foster as head of Penn's student government body. Why are you seeking this position? Michael Krouse: The primary reason I'm running for chair is basically because I think I have the most experience on the body.... I've been able to observe and contribute to executive discussions on the UA... knowing what it's like to represent students and how difficult that job is, and how difficult it is to draw in the community and make them interested in what we do everyday, makes me someone who can therefore work on those issues. Eric Chen: The chair of the UA should be the external voice to the student body.... I've had a lot of just working with the students and knowing what it's like on a day-to-day basis that I feel like I connect a lot more with the day-to-day life of students... that a lot of time people feel that the world of chair is a figurehead that they can't connect to. Dana Hork: ...My experiences serving for three UA chairs has certainly given me a unique perspective about what works internally and also what works and doesn't work about getting our message out externally.... I really feel personally dedicated to continuing the dialogue that we've started within the UA and with other student groups and other student leaders to representing more student voices and student interests, because there is no average student.... As UA chairperson, what would be your first priority? Chen: My first priority as a UA chair is to make sure that the students of this University have the respect of the administration and also the respect of each other.... And I would just make sure that the administration would be accountable for the decision-making process that they have, that students have concrete input into the decision-making process.... Hork: I think that the most important issue that the UA faces is to make itself relevant to the student body, and dealing with issues that really concern them, and I think that the way we've been misguided in thinking that by churning out more proposals, we will therefore fix the problem of dealing with more student concerns. I think that it's a matter of getting more input before we churn out those proposals.... Krouse: My first priority would be to imbue a sense of responsibility and what it means to be a representative for each member of the UA.... What I want to accomplish is to sort of give that sense of responsibility -- individual responsibility -- to each UA member, make them feel like they're a part of something bigger. Something where they have to think very hard about what sort of issues we pursue, how we represent the students, how the students perceive the UA... Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this year's UA. Hork: I think [Outgoing Chairman Michael] Bassik was again, the force behind so many of our accomplishments this year.... We also lost the committee structure that we used to have. And part of that is because we established a communications committee two years ago which diluted the strength of the committees by dispersing our members out more thinly. Krouse: I don't think the answer to the problems that we've had is to add more members to a committee.... I think that's where sort of internal communication amongst the UA, between exec, between committee chairs, between individual members, has to increase in order to accomplish our goals next year... Chen: I think one of the greatest strengths of the Undergraduate Assembly this year was that it was able to rapidly address issues that students were concerned about.... Part of the UA's greatest weakness, is that it is, a lot of times, falls to one individual who's meeting with these administrators.... More members of the Undergraduate Assembly could have been involved with just going to talk with the administrators who help shape policy... What kind of relationship do you think the UA should have with the administration? Krouse: I think the UA's relationship has to be close to the administration if we want to accomplish our goals. But we also don't want to put out the perception amongst the students that we're just the tool of the administration because then we lose our legitimacy as a representative voice... Chen: The Undergraduate Assembly needs to know who are the decision makers on this campus, it has to know who are the policy makers and who are just the figureheads.... We as students have concerns that must be addressed, and the administration has concerns.... We are both two very strong administrations that must have equal respect for each other. Hork: I think that the relationship with the administration has to be inherently close because we're all working toward creating a better campus. I think we may agree on the way to get there, but in coming together, and in forging relationships, we're going to come up with a mutual way to get to an end result.... Personal relationships are of the utmost importance... What's your philosophy for working on behalf of all the students of Penn, even those who don't think that the UA serves them well? Chen: ...Let me step back, and say that, me, Eric Chen, as an individual, how can I address your issues?... I, as an individual, I want to sit down with you and I want to talk about why you have these concerns.... Along that vein, I think that working personal relationships with the chairs of the coalitions on campus is key... Hork: I think in seeing three other UAs, this UA was the first UA to really make concrete steps toward hearing concerns of more student groups that may feel underrepresented.... I think that next year we need to make sure that the UA students coordinating with those student groups are not necessarily members of those groups, because we didn't take enough initiative to really branch out from our own personal comfort zone.... Krouse: ...Internal communication, without that, any additional voices won't be heard, and it's not necessarily to bring them to the table if you're not going to have strong internal communications.... I think the strongest, the biggest strength of the UA, is its wholeness.... I think that that's where the role of the chair and the role of the executive committee is so important, is being able to look at an issue and realize what voices need to be heard on this issue, whom should I speak to, what student leaders should I talk to, what administrators do I need to speak to... A common problem cited about the UA is your visibility on campus. How do you plan to deal with this? Hork: I think first and foremost, the chair has to make themselves available and visible, and willing to, at the end of the day, go out there and make that extra phone call to increase the relationships and thereby increase visibility. And I think visibility comes in two forms: one, I think it comes in having an open flow of communication between us and the DP and also other publications. I think it also comes on an individual basis... Krouse: I think this is another example of a problem with the UA that can be solved by empowering individual members.... I think one of the things that we haven't done so well is, like I said, internal communication, and I think if each student -- each representative -- feels like they have a vested interest in the running of the UA, the issues that we tackle, increasing publicity, talking to people on a one-to-one basis, finding out their issues, finding out the concerns that they want to address on the Undergraduate Assembly, I think that will be the first necessary step to increasing our visibility.... Chen: The question of visibility is two-fold. It's what kind of visibility does the UA want to have.... I think that the UA, as has been mentioned before, that we need to do a lot more outreach to the individual student, that a lot of the concerns that come with visibility is that a lot of people are concerned that the UA is an insular body.... The second part is visibility within the press. I think that when the UA tackles issues that are of grave importance that it's a natural extension that we will have publicity.