Meet: David Werner, presidential candidate for USG, and Aimee Gipper, vice presidential candidate for USG.
Major and year:
Werner: Finance and Chinese sophomore.
Gipper: History and political science sophomore.
Web site: www.dwag2005.com
What makes you qualified to lead the USG?
Werner: We are the only two candidates currently involved in the USG. And I've served on the president's staff, I'm the assistant government relations director this past year along with being Tempe City Council liaison, and I serve on the Student Health and Wellness Advisory Committee along with a few other committees.
Gipper: I'm senator for the college of liberal arts and sciences, where I serve in the government operations committee, and I'm also on the meal plan committee that's looking at how mandatory meal plans are going to work.
What is your platform and why?
Gipper: The first is increasing the length of the drop/add period to a minimum of seven days just so that students are guaranteed to be able to go to each of their classes at least once before the drop/add period ends.
Werner: The second initiative is to create support materials for Smart Enforcer. Smart Enforcer is a program students have to install on their computers before they are allowed on the [ASU] network. The problem is there's no easy-use tool or any information out there right now to instruct you on how to correct [problems].
Gipper: The third thing we want to do is to enhance security in parking lots and structures because this past semester there were [more than] 300 auto-related crimes committed on ASU's campus. So we really want to work to increase lighting --- Structure 7 is the model of what we would like all the structures to look like. We also want to partner with [the Department of Public Safety] to increase patrolling.
Werner: The last initiative that we'd like to push through is to create an express Flash service to Lot 59.
How much of your platform can you realistically expect to accomplish?
Werner: One hundred percent. We've thoroughly checked out our platform with members of the administration, members of the registrar's department, members of the information technology department. Everything we have on our platform is implementable [sic] if we are elected to office.
What would you do differently from the current USG administration?
Werner: The one thing that Sophie [O'Keefe-Zelman] and Julie [Johnson, the current USG president and vice president, respectively] talked about really before they began was moving USG off the third floor. What we would really like to see is kind of a help desk or at least a table set up outside of the [Memorial Union] weekly or bi-weekly where we offer all of the information on our programs.
With eight competing campaign tickets, how will you distinguish yourself from the pack?
Werner: Definitely our experience. If you were in any organization, would you expect someone who has never been a member to run for president? I don't think so, it just doesn't make sense. You have to be involved in the process.
What are the weaknesses of your campaign?
Werner: I think the biggest weakness that we've found is just trying to get to every student organization that's represented here at ASU, every student at ASU, since we are such a large campus.
Gipper: We really do want to be able to speak to every student here at ASU.
Reach the reporter at rkost@asu.edu.
