Podcaster Nolan Williams sits down with USG-Tempe Presidential candidate, Robert Bartlemay. They talk about Bartlemay's platform and the experience his ticket brings to this election. If you want more information on their campaign, you can visit their website or Facebook page.
Nolan Williams: Voting begins on March 26 for the Arizona State Student Government. Tempe campus students will have three tickets to pick from, and I sat down with Robert Bartlemay to hear his pitch.
Robert Bartlemay: I’m Robert Bartlemay. I’m running for President of the Undergraduate Student Government on the Tempe campus. I’m a history and SCETL double major.
I’m a leader on and off campus. On campus I’m President of Political History and Leadership Club, and an active member of the Alexander Hamilton Society. Off campus, I’m very involved in the community through the Maricopa County Boy Scouts of America. I just finished a term as President of their National Honors Society for central and northern Arizona. Additionally, I work for Mesa Public Schools as an AVID program tutor.
Nolan Williams: Tell me about your team.
Robert Bartlemay: My VP of Policy is Vincent Despain, and my VP of Services is Jacquelyn Alcaraz.
Nolan Williams: Tell me about their experience.
Robert Bartlemay: Vince has been a friend of mine for a long time. He has also worked extensively with the Boy Scouts of America. He is very passionate in sustainability, and he has used his position with the Boy Scouts to really push sustainability through service projects and other methods.
He also has a lot of experience planning large events, and working with policy and support. He’s running for policy because he tends to be a political moderate, and thinks he would be a great fit to really facilitate debate on campus, and make sure all voices are heard.
Jackie Alcaraz, we met through mutual friend very recently, and she was super excited to get on board with our ticket and run for services because she believes the services right now are not accessible enough to the average student. She wants to change that.
She’s a first-generation college student, a first generation American and a Latina in engineering, so we appreciate her diverse perspective. She has experience on campus with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and other engineering groups.
Nolan Williams: Tell me about your platform.
Robert Bartlemay: My campaign's motto is stand T.A.L.. Each of those letters stands for one part of our platform. "T" is transparency. Right now, we believe the average student does not understand enough of what goes on in USG. Generally speaking, most students, if you ask them what they know about USG might not even know what the acronym stands for. We strive to make it so that everybody understands what USG is and how it works for them, and more importantly how their money, which is going to USG through fees, is being spent on them.
Additionally, USG and its policy center is able to effect change in the local, state and even to an extent in the national government. A lot of students are having policies advocated for on their behalf, and they aren't sure what those policies are. A lot of this work is really well done. We’d think it'd be great to have more student input on what policies they’d like to see USG work towards.
"A" is for accessibility. On campus, USG offers a lot of programs and services that we don’t think are readily accessible to students. Our biggest example right now is the safety escort, which will takes students, if they're are on campus, to their dorm at night so that they can remain safe – so that they can count on being safe on their way home. Right now, that runs from 7PM to 2AM, and we think that should run longer. We don’t think there should be ever be a time, on campus, where students don’t feel safe walking to their dorm. We want to improve those hours.
We also want to improve accessibility and knowledge of the bike co-op, which offers a lot of great resources for students with bikes to get their bikes fixed cheaply and to keep their bikes safe from bike theft. We don't think enough students are able to take advantage of those because these programs are inaccessible to them.
Our last one is "L," Leadership. Our team believes in decisive servant leadership. We do not want to waste time with indecision. We want to step forward and make decisions quickly and make them right the first time, so that we can deliver an efficient student government. Servant leadership means that we aren’t doing this to have some fancy title or to be in the “in crowd.” We want to do this because we care about students and we care about making the government work for them.
Nolan Williams: Remember to vote on March 26th and March 27th. You can find information about the elections here.
For the State Press, I’m Nolan Williams.
Reach the reporter at njwilli2@asu.edu and on Twitter.
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