DP: What do you think the biggest challenges facing the UA are in the coming year? Lattman: I think a lot of the challenges that we will be facing this year are from the changing diversity of this campus and the changing diversity of this body. A few years ago, this was a body represented solely by people that did not really represent anyone. Then it became an entirely Greek body, and now it's starting to change to really represent our student body as a whole. We have a really dynamic group of people for next year, and I think that some of the biggest challenges are going to be to try to shape this group of people coming from different backgrounds and different positions with very different goals for the UA to work together to really accomplish good things. I think another challenge that we will face is as far as being perceived as weak currently. And again, I feel that under the current system, while a lot of individual autonomy has been granted to the UA members this year by our chair, I don't think that the chair has taken a hands-down management approach to try to get leadership out of such members, and that's something that I'd really try to change. I feel on both regards, we need a manager on this year's body, and I think that those are some of my strongest skills.
Short: I touched on this a little bit earlier in my last comments, but I think that some of the challenges within the UA concern getting the group to work together. As I said, I think we have lots of diverse people and diverse interests and diverse agendas. There are personal agendas that are going to be coming up already, and I can sort of see the factions developing early, and I think we really need to prevent that from happening too much and get the group to work together better. I also think a challenge will be reorganizing the committee structure so that it better reflects our overall purpose and vision of where the UA is going to be going, and from that, I think the issues will flow. Outside of the way that the UA is managed, I think some of the greatest challenges are getting in touch with constituents and opening those channels of communication so we can find out what are the really hot-button issues that affect students. These kinds of things are always changing, but I know at least in the past, we've had a pretty good ear to the ground at least in terms of what's going on on campus, and I think that by opening up different channels through not just student leaders but different students in different areas based on either our use of the "coop" program or our improved seats on committees -- our UC committee seats, our improved opportunities on UC committee seats -- that those kinds of outreach will help us get in touch with what's really going on.
Schreiberg: I think I differ here from the other candidates slightly because when I look at the diversity of this year's body, I don't see factions developing. I see a lot of potential and opportunity that has not been there, and to me, that's not a challenge, it's an opportunity. On leadership retreat, which OSL runs, I went and I was a part of a group of 40 people who didn't know each other and came from a much more diverse background than the UA currently does. Over the course of the weekend, you get to know people in a very meaningful way that transcends any kind of superficial factioning that you'd think would develop simply by looking at the diversity of the body. There are issues that affect all students -- they don't just affect certain types of students, and we need to get away from that. We need to be looking at a body that can work together as a whole to pursue large interests and that's willing to work together for interests that they don't necessarily support. Let's stop viewing it as things that will hurt them. The body can do whatever it wants to do as long as you respect each other and know where you're coming from. To that end, I'd like to see our retreat focus more on what leadership retreat does and get people to understand who we are. We are students who come from many different areas. We are, nonetheless, the same basic mindset of people who want to do well in school and achieve a lot and go on and do great things when they graduate. People don't come to the UA simply to pursue their personal agendas. It becomes that way, and we become too competitive when we have an infrastructure that makes competitiveness a priority and the potential for reward. So I think getting a group that can really work together and see each other as people, not as potential factions will be a way to overcome this seeming challenge. The challenge that I really do see, though, is getting to that point of respect, and it doesn't matter how diverse or not diverse the group is. We need to respect each other. We can't have debates, we can't have discussions, we can't pursue anything if people don't respect each other. That's a challenge I look forward to facing.
DP: Define the role of UA chairman. Short: I think the UA chair needs to be the external relations lightning rod for the rest of the UA. I think that the UA chair is the public face of the Undergraduate Assembly, and when they represent themselves around campus, that they represent the UA with pride and dignity. I think that this takes place throughout meetings, as well and through managing meetings and through interpersonal relations with other student leaders and relations with faculty, as well. I think that also, the UA chair needs to be a hands-off manager who gives as much respect to every other UA member as they themselves deserve. I think respect starts at the top, and when the UA chair is civil and treats people with respect and dignity, then the rest of the body should be able to follow. And when that doesn't happen, then the UA chair needs to try to find ways of better managing the body and working with other leaders in the UA to achieve more respect and more civility. I think the UA chair also has a role in sort of thinning down the agenda so that meetings don't drag on and that only things that are of a priority to the student body are followed through or at least debated in meetings, rather than things that would be wasting time, such as maybe internal improvements or several other bills we've had to deal with this past year.
Schreiberg: I think the role of chair as the external voice has been pursued to the utmost. Everyone will recognize that you are the person the administrators go to, and relations with them are important. But it goes beyond that, though, and hands-off managing is important, definitely, but you need to be accessible. You need to be sharing information that you get. It cannot be a situation where the administrator comes to you, and unless that administrator says this is absolutely confidential, your first e-mail has to go to the executive board, and your second e-mail should go to the entire body. This body cannot hold back information and expect to get anything accomplished when we keep members out of the loop. No one wants to be part of a group where they don't feel that they're welcome or that they're treated with any kind of dignity. I think that the chair needs to be extremely involved in both external and internal affairs. They need to be making sure that the vice chair is on top of the committee chairs and doing their job, but they also need to be there to make sure on their own that people are doing their job, because what the chair thinks of you carries a lot of weight. I remember when I was a sophomore, and Mike Bassik took a personal interest in everything I was doing, and I don't know if he was genuine or not, but it didn't matter, because he made me feel like I was a valued member of the body, and he took that extra second to send me a random e-mail and say, Hey, how's this project going, and I'd be like wow, someone's on top of what I'm doing, and it's like a kick in the ass. It's kind of important. And also, this year, the chair will be responsible for making sure that the steering committee is not a sounding board for events. The steering committee is for insight into possible collaboration, cooperation and issues, and it is not a calendar. It doesn't need to be a calendar.
Lattman: I think that the UA chair has a number of roles it has to fill. First, they must take on the role of public speaker of the Undergraduate Assembly. And what's important to note is that the UA chair must speak even when they do not necessarily believe what they're speaking on. As a body of 33 undergraduates, we don't always agree. However, majority rules on the UA. Personally, as a former model U.N. debater, I have learned how to debate a side of an issue that I don't always agree with and debate it effectively and responsibly so as to convince people that I am supporting that idea even when I don't necessarily. And I think that's an important quality for a UA chair, because I feel that we won't always agree, and the UA chair is not above anybody else necessarily on the body. Secondly, I think that you need a strict parliamentarian. I feel that the UA chair must be able to keep the order at the meetings and not be afraid to use a gavel, not be afraid to force people to stick to the parliamentary procedure, because the rules exist for a reason, and they've existed for 100 years for a reason. And when we stray from those rules is when we start disrespecting each other and the meetings go on for four hours, and when we keep to the rules, we respect each other and the meetings last two hours. So there's something to be said for Robert's Rules of Order. Another thing I believe is that the UA chair should really be a leader and somebody that builds leadership. I think that using the committee chair system, we can be successful in delegating to the committees to make recommendations. The UA chair should not keep things to themselves, but it's not necessarily always right to go to the body right away when we have an effective committee system that can take care of it.
DP: What kind of relationship should the UA have with the University administration?
<font color="#660000"> Schreiberg: The UA's relationship with the administration is respectful and must be professional, but it does not have to be that of a supplicant asking for handouts. Too often, we go in too willing to compromise, too willing to find out, what will they give us? And then we ask for that in return, and we chalk it up as some major accomplishment when really we just did what they were going to do anyway. If we have something to challenge, we challenge it. There's a way to go about negotiating and dealing with administrators as professional people and have them treat us with respect for our representation of the student interest as a whole. But that only comes when we can legitimately represent the students as a whole. We can do that by doing much better research and much better background on the proposals we submit. If we can take ourselves seriously and put forth the effort and put forth something that is very solid and has no holes in it, then we can make a constructive argument that doesn't rely on pandering. It relies on making persuasive arguments to change their view on an issue or just a change in policy they might not have thought about. Often times, we think they're the enemy, when they really just haven't thought of something the way we see it. And a lot of the changes we make is just something that makes sense. But I don't think we need to go looking for handouts from them. We can be a lot firmer in our relationship with the administration.
Lattman: I think this is an issue that all three of us are really going to agree with. For years, the UA has been considered spineless when it comes to the administration, and that's something that I think all three of us agree needs to change. And I agree with Seth that the way to go about doing this is through strong research and by keeping up respect while persistently fighting. However, I would go about it in two very distinct ways. One of them is to utilize other groups on campus. I feel that often, we deal with issues that some of the work could be helped by groups that would be proud to be involved in the issue but just haven't been contacted by the UA. And an example of this is, I was dealing with an issue involving dining in the Engineering school, getting a kitchen in the Engineering school food service as well, and we were just told flat out no, not given a reason. And my first instinct was to go to EADAB and get their support on it, and EADAB hadn't even thought to start making a position on it. So right now, I've gone back and started working with the Engineering Dean's Advisory Board. Those kind of groups can help us more than we can ever help ourselves. The second way that I would go about doing this is, again, to increase the amount of transparency that the University gives us, and I've already laid out my plan to do this, but I would be adamant in that we must receive all the information that we can possibly receive and not stop until we do. Because I feel without information, we're never going to be able to construct that great argument that's going to be able to change an adamant administrator's mind.
Short: I think that on several issues, the relationship between the administration and the student body isn't as antagonistic as it always looks like. I think that we need to keep the professionalism and the dignity and respect that we have with administrators so we can keep what has been a good relationship flourishing. You can see examples all over, with facilities, where we're largely privy to quite a bit of information concerning University planning and campus planning, and the faculty members and other undergraduate administrators who deal with policies to the point where they want to find student input because they know that it will make it better. I think that by strengthening our relationship with the administration, we're better able to succeed at policies which we make up within our own body. However, there are antagonistic
