As a free service to the students of the University of Houston, The Daily Cougar asked the three candidates for Students' Association president to submit statements outlining their parties' platforms.
The following are the statements, arranged alphabetically by candidate. The Daily Cougar edited the statements only for length and clarity. No content was altered.
Campuswide SA elections will be held Wednesday and Thursday.
Eric Cabello
Within five years, many changes have taken place on our campus. We have seen the addition of new sports facilities that will improve our abilities to continue recruiting superb athletes.
There is a new school of music which is bringing much acclaim to our university. A new building has been erected for science and research, and additional parking has been built on the east side of Calhoun.
Internally, we have progressed from standing in long lines to register for classes to registering through the VIP system.
We have found stability with President Smith at the helm that will see the university through the University of Houston's 2015 vision.
We, the candidates of the Campus Advocates' Party, have come together to promote student initiatives and ideas for the benefit of the university, its students and its organizations.
The CAP platform challenges you to expect more from your student government. It is here to work cohesively with the administration to improve your college experience.
We will put more than $4,500 to immediate use during the upcoming school year with alternate funding. This funding will not come from raising your student fees, and it will not come from an adjustment of last year's budget. The funding will provide:
implementation of a monetary scholastic achievement award for the top three organizations each semester;
implementation of a spirit award to the organization with the most school spirit throughout the year;
updated devices for Parking and Transportation to unlock car doors, since the current ones break locks at students' expense;
an opportunity for excess alternate funding to be set aside in an account for a university project on which the students shall vote.
We will address issues for the concern of the veterans by:
lobbying the university administration for the acceptance of electronic certification and advanced tuition funding for veterans, and
lobbying nationally for the acceptance of Veterans' Administration funding for double majors.
Other areas of concern are:
Residence Hall meal cards. Many students have a remaining balance at the end of the summer semesters. We believe a refund should be available or that the balance should carry over to the next school year.
We will lobby for a first-class recreational facility comparable to the Athletic Facility that should greatly enhance our intramural department and be of great benefit to the students.
This is the platform we advocate. The first four goals are easy ones; as for the other four, we must roll up our sleeves and put the CAP to work.
Amaury Nora
My name is Amaury E. Nora and I am running for SA president with the SURE Party.
The truth about SA is most of the student body really does not know about our student government. SA ran on a $96,000 budget this year. The budget came from our student fees. What has the SA accomplished this academic year? Nothing!
University bills written to improve the campus have been sitting in committees. Michael De Leon's March 6 letter in The Daily Cougar really hit the nail when he criticized the SA. It lacks the compassion and commitment to make this university great.
Throughout this legislative session, I have written more than five bills to improve this university, yet none of them have made it to the senate floor.
My campaign platform is solely based on realistic issues. My ultimate goal is to bring back confidence to the SA. First, I plan to have a true needs assessment. The current needs assessment used by Campus Activities was not a true representative sample of the student body. Since the University of Houston is a commuter school, a majority of the student body was missed. We cannot base our decisions only on a few students.
Second, I want to give back to the university. I am willing to cut the SA budget. I plan to have a dollar-for-dollar student fee reduction, meaning for every dollar the SA receives, I plan to give back its equivalent to the student body.
Finally, I plan to address the needs of the forgotten graduate students and students who live on campus. For graduate students I will advocate for more GAs, TAs and RAs. For the students who live on campus, I will advocate for a meal plan.
Monica Quintero
My name is Monica C. Quintero. I am running for student body president under the Cougar SPIRIT ticket. This ticket consists of 32 diverse students from all aspects of the university.
In order to create an effective platform for Cougar SPIRIT, we asked for the Student Needs Assessment survey from the Dean of Students. This allowed us to measure the needs of the students.
One of the highest-rated responses was to have our own student recreation center. In order to do this, Jose Enrique Soto and Jeff Baily, senatorial candidates, and I were appointed to the Student Recreation Advisory Committee.
This committee's purpose was to research and find out how to build a facility for the students - built for the students and run by the students!
We also noticed there is a wide lack of communication between the students and the SA. Cougar SPIRIT wants to change this view by having a broad coalition of students who will be able to go back to their respective colleges and inform the students what their student government is doing for them.
Town hall meetings were the first step, and now we need to become accessible on the Internet with a Website and utilize The Daily Cougar to inform students when and where Senate meetings are.
Furthermore, we would like to develop a complaint line so students can voice their concerns, and we vow to have a response within a 24-hour time period.
Cougar SPIRIT also acknowledges that UH has a very culturally diverse campus, so we feel the university should have quality professors of ethnicity to match our student population. We want to make sure that all our professors have equal opportunity to become tenured.