From left; Connect Four’s VPA candidate Amanda Steele, presidential candidate Anthony Green, and VPSA candidate Kati Proctor. Chris Salata and Chris Salata
Pressing for better and more communication across campus groups, Connect Four promises more opportunities for conversation between Student Government (SG) and the student body.
The slate plans to hold weekly office hours open to all students and RSO representatives in order to facilitate campus-wide dialog.
“We’re called Connect Four because we want to connect the three of us to you,” said third-year Amanda Steele, the slate’s VPSA candidate.
Touting both its wide range of experience in both elected office and executive roles in campus RSOs, Campus Four professes a unique understanding of SG from both inside and out. Steele has served as co-executive director of the undergraduate chapter of the ACLUofC and chaired this year’s UnCommon Fund. She is joined in her bid for executive office by graduate student and presidential candidate Anthony Green, presently the Graduate Council Chair, and fellow third-year and VPA candidate Kati Proctor, who chairs the current Student Government Funding Committee and holds an executive position on the student academic publication The Midway Review.
The slate said that recent SG initiatives failed to consider enough student input, adding that last year’s New Initiatives Fund, the predecessor to this year’s UnCommon Fund, was limited in its vision and implementation.
“A lot of people were very upset by the New Initiatives Fund, which was chaired by [One Campus presidential candidate] Matt Kennedy. It didn’t approach enough people,” Steele said. “I think I succeeded, and I think a lot of people felt we did serve a large group of students,” she added, pointing to her role in this year’s UnCommon Fund.
Redesigning the SG website is also a priority for Connect Four, and the slate hopes to remake the website into a cornerstone of SG–campus communication. Green said the slate hopes to hire a professional webmaster to reorganize the site and incorporate a more integrated SG blog.
The slate’s primary goal is to make sure SG produces visible change for students on campus, noting that talk about SG initiatives rarely translates into policy changes on campus.
“I think we need to get RSOs in a room and really talk about [funding] as opposed to just sending out a few emails and saying, ‘No one wanted to talk about it,’” Proctor said. “We’ll be looking to see if the funding system is really working for students on campus.”
Increasing transparency in SG is a central focus of Connect Four’s executive bid. If elected to office, the candidates said they would relinquish their executive positions at student campus organizations in order to maintain a politically neutral atmosphere in SG.
“We will not be in any leadership positions in RSOs on campus. That’s not true for current slate members,” Steele said.
Correction:
The April 22 “Student Government Election Guide” incorrectly stated the positions of Amanda Steele and Kati Proctor. Steele ran for vice president for student affairs (VPSA) and Proctor ran for vice president for administration (VPA) on the Connect Four slate.
