Candidates running for AS president and AS vice president reached out to students at Plaza Del Sol yesterday where they debated expressed their reactions and thoughts on issues affecting students.
Students asked questions to the candidates regarding any issues affecting students and the campus. One issue that was brought up was the potential 10 percent tuition fee increase for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. Presidential candidates were asked if they had any plans to prevent the potential fee increases.
“Overall right now, we can’t do much?because they’re (the tuition fee increases) going to happen,” said presidential candidate Miguel Segura. “We have to get to CSSA and work with them and see how we can work with that because the governor is still going to do the increase.”
Current AS President Adam Haverstock, who is also running for re-election, said he has been working hard this year trying to advocate for funding in the university and the CSU.
“I think we need to continue to fight,” Haverstock said. “I don’t think it’s over yet.”
Candidates running for vice president were asked what impacts would they make on the campus. Vice President candidate Nicole Umali said one of the impacts she would make is to provide more and better food services in the university’s dormitories and on campus. Umali also addressed the issue of the university’s retention rate.
“In the first semester, we enroll about 94.2 percent to students and then it goes down to 75.1 percent,” Umali said.
Umali’s running mate, Alex Shahin, said he would increase parking spaces for students by using the university’s Master Plan.
The presidential candidates were asked how they would work with the campus police in order to prevent incidents to occur on the campus.
“I trust our campus police to work on this issue,” Haverstock said.
Segura said he feels that the university needs to work more with the campus police because of the recent incident that occurred in the university’s dormitory.
The AS elections will be held next week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Students can cast their votes on campus or onlineat www.csun.edu/elections.
