Student body presidential and vice presidential candidates debate

Watch the live-stream of last night's Student Body Presidential Debate. Due to a poor connection in the Johnson Center the video cuts out parts of the debate, and the quality is poor at times (Aram Zucker-Scharff)

The student body presidential and vice presidential candidates debated last night and discussed their plans for the future of Student Government if they win the election.

Taking place in the Johnson Center Atrium, the candidates were asked a series of questions from the moderator and then questions from the audience, with each answer having a time limit of a minute or two.

During one portion of the debate the moderator asked the candidates what they thought the single largest issue facing the student body was and the candidates all offered different answers. The Victoria Jackson/Derek Deakins ticket said that the lack of transparency was the biggest issue currently facing the student body.

“I feel the biggest issue here at Mason is the fact that often times you guys don’t know what we do for you, you all’s voices are not normally heard and [we] want you guys to feel at liberty to come up to one of us, let us know," said Jackson, "Because the truth of the matter is there’s no way I could possibly know what each and every one of you face at Mason unless you let me know, and then I can work towards doing things on your behalf—talking to administrators, passing initiatives and doing programs that can serve you all."

Rather than transparency being the biggest issue, Ally Bowers and her running mate Jacky Yoo felt it was the lack of unity on campus.

“I think the overarching issue that the student body faces is that there is no unity on campus. Yes, we may be united within an organization, our clubs, and the sororities and fraternities that we may be in, but there is no overarching unity within the campus. I think it’s great that when basketball season comes around we all rally together and you speak with your fellow students that you may not know, but we need that year round, regardless of what season it is or what sport is going on,” said Bowers.

To solve this problem the duo proposed having a year round spirit campaign called Gold Rush 365, where every sports team, including club sports, is recognized.

As for the Michael DeMatteo and Michael Lillie campaign, they thought the biggest issue was with the budget and tuition.

“I believe the budget is our number one concern here for our students, it affects parking, it affects our tuition, it affects housing, it affects the whole nine yards. So the first thing I’ll do when I’m elected is provide a. . .town hall system to let folks know about [the] budget,” said DeMatteo.

DeMatteo has also previously called for more accountability and transparency within Student Government.

All presidential candidates are members of the current Student Government such as DeMatteo and Jackson who are student senators, and Bowers who is the speaker of the senate.

The current Student Government has been largely criticized during this election season for a lack of transparency, accountability and getting things done, specifically by the DeMatteo and Jackson campaigns. Bowers and Yoo, who are leading members of the current Student Government, with Yoo as the current vice president, said that in reality they have done quite a bit for Student Government.

“My position last year in Student Government was the government and academic affairs chair, so I worked a lot with how Student Government was structured. I actually created two new committees—the University Life and Mason committee within Student Government and helped to restructure it,” said Bowers.

Bowers also said that the What Do You Want Wednesdays, a recent initiative by Student Government that has members go out on North Plaza and talk to students one-on-one, was the brain child between Yoo and herself, having been concocted earlier this summer and implemented last fall.

The Bowers/Yoo campaign has also been holding a series of forums with members of the GMU administration this week.

Both DeMatteo and Jackson claimed that they could be a fresh face for Student Government, and hoped to take Student Government in a different direction.

“The main reason. . .that I ran was because people were asking me ‘Are you going to come back as a senator, are you going to come back?’ and for me I was like, I don’t like the way this organization is going. We’re a representative organization and there are people there who are on power trips, people there for personal agendas, and I was not liking that feel, I didn’t feel like I was a part of the organization I originally wanted to join,” said Jackson.

It was this feeling that caused Jackson to want to come back to Student Government, but this time as the president and to make changes.

As for DeMatteo, he also felt that the current Student Government was not getting the job done.

“I know how to get results,” said DeMatteo, “You can say spirit, you can say challenge, but what does that mean? You know, we have to provide substantive results for our Mason students and whether that’s working with our faculty here, [like] Sandy Scherrens, or David Ramadan who’s on the Board of Visitors . . .we have to be able to provide real results for our Mason students,” said DeMatteo.

For more information on each candidate you can find C2M video interviews with them here.