Issue 21, Volume 82

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Issue 21, Volume 82

Race for president

Meet the candidates running for SGA's most-coveted position in next year's administration. | PG. 2

uh.edu/csm

NEWS

President's farewell With next year's administration on the rise, SGA president Shane Smith looks back on his time in office. | PG. 4

2017 candidates

Take a look at every senator, president and vice president running in this year's election cycle. | PG. 6

OPINION

SGA rundown

Each of the presidential candidates boasts a set of strengths, but they also have some glaring weaknesses. | PG. 8

4

Vote, please

3

The Cougar Editorial Board imploress students to take student government seriously by voting. | PG. 9

SPORTS

2

The other race

More literally than their counterparts in SGA, track and field athletes prepare for a competition in Birmingham. | PG. 12

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2 | Wednesday, February 22, 2017

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Marialuisa Rincon, EDITOR

IN DEPTH ELECTION

Meet your 2017 SGA presidential candidates MARIALUISA RINCON, JASMINE DAVIS, JULIE ARAICA

The Cougar: What sets you apart from the other presidential candidates?

Shawn Bhatia: I would say it’s the professional experience and experience running registered student organizations on campus. I’ve had experience at a law firm, interning on Capitol Hill, interning at a political non-profit, interning at a civil rights group. I think the professional experience is very important when it comes to running an organization like SGA. It has a budget of around $145,000, and influence over a good amount of students on campus. I think the leadership, whoever wins, needs to have had professional experience in the past because that way, you can run SGA professionally and you don’t have that inexperience.

Managing organizations, managing a campaign, it really sets you apart on how you’re going to govern and advocate for the students.

Jordyn Chaffold: I think what sets me apart from them is the other people running, they seem like what you would expect to see out of someone that's running. My morals and my intentions for running for student government are not political in any way.

They're 100 percent just to advocate for the students and give back to the University that gave me as much as I have now. My team is full of extremely diverse and different people. We have RAs, we have people from the Muslim Student Association, we have people who serve on different University committees but for the most part, we're not cookie-cutter individuals that are all political science majors who just want to come in and make the govern-

The Cougar

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ABOUT THE COUGAR The Cougar is published every Wednesday during the fall and spring semesters and online at thedailycougar. com. The Daily Cougar is supported in part by Student Service Fees.

NEWS EDITORS

The election for the 54th Administration of the Student Government Association is around the corner, and The Cougar recently sat down with the four presidential candidates to talk platforms, ambitions and qualifications.

For the 2017-2018 term, Winni Zhang is running under the party Spirit RED; Robert Comer is running under VoteforMeme; Jordyn Chaffold is running with House of Innovation; and Shawn Bhatia is running with REDvolution.

The election will be held on Get Involved from Feb. 28 through March 2. The presidential debate, sponsored by The Daily Cougar, will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

i

COPYRIGHT No part of the newspaper in print or online may be reproduced without the consent of the director of Student Publications.

ISSUE STAFF WEB EDITING

Emily Burleson CLOSING EDITORS

Trey Strange Alex Meyer Leah Nash

Jordyn Chaffold, Robert Comer, Shawn Bhatia and Winni Zhang will go head to head on Feb. 28 | Ajani Stewart/ The Cougar ment political. We're creative.

Robert Comer: I think what sets me and my vice president apart is our student happiness and student fun centered approach to this election. I think that through us looking to make students happy with memes and humor, and more memes, we are really in touch with what students want.

Winni Zhang: Experience. Every single presidential candidate has been given the opportunity to work in the executive branch this year, but only Robert and I have truly put in the dedication to work on projects for the student body.

This year, I have been working all year as Deputy Chief of Staff on multiple projects (mental health, free pads/ tampons, etc.), and I was also involved in multiple other big projects. I won't need a "transition" period to memorize the names of faculty/staff . I can hit the ground running with my ideas for Parking, Health Services, and Textbook Prices. The platform ideas are all in action, and we need a student body president who can see implementation through.

TC: What is your administration going to do differently from the current one?

SB: The three points of our campaign are affordability, accessibility and diversity. The current administration had some trouble getting off the ground, but I think that they’ve started pushing a lot of what their platform was.

The one thing we’re really pushing is being realistic with our goals. When it comes to affordability, one thing that we want to do is make sure that we’re lowering student fees or freezing student fees. Another thing is we want

to advocate for detailed tuition plans to be sent out to each student.

Everything that we say can be done, Another idea that we’re focusing on is reaching out to students throughout the entire year. When you’re involved in student government you are representative of your students, you are the voice of student opinion. It’s important that you don’t just hear their opinion for two weeks and that we get it throughout the entire time. We will definitely be talking in classrooms, to organizations, staying in contact throughout the entire year.

JC: I feel like most of the times when SGA administrations exist, they campaign to the students and they tell them "we're gonna bring these two or three huge things and they're going to happen and that's why you should vote for us," and we want to break that mold.

Instead of offering three things, we want to offer as many things as possible. There are a lot of things on campus that can be fixed, big and small, and I would rather accomplish 100 small things than not accomplish three big things. Most of the time they promise things that SGA doesn't have 100 percent direct control over. I'm promising things I know the student government can do. Parking is always going to be an issue and we will work toward it. We're going to work on parking, we're going to work of putting the right people on FSAC so we can have better representation for our food and putting the right people on SFAC so we can have better representation for our student fees. We're not saying forget the big points, we're saying "these are the things we know we can do while we're working on the big points."

RC: We are going to have more fun, the students are going to have more fun and we are going to create a framework which makes the executive branch more of an open branch so that we don’t turn away anyone who wants to participate. We will structure it so that anyone who walks in and can’t be a senator can come in and be accommodated to work on initiatives that are going on in the university.

WZ: Marketing and Outreach. We need to be transparent and accessible. One thing I've done this year is implement a website called YouCanBookMe which allows students to book meetings with us whenever our calendars are free. This way, they can meet with a representative by simply selecting a time and filling out a short form. We need to be talking to classes, sending out surveys, and tabling more often.

As people who serve and represent the student body, we need to go to students. This is something I will focus heavily on, and senators within my party are very passionate about.

TC: How is your party’s platform unique?

SB: When you’re in student government you’re representing the entire student body. And how do you accurately represent the student body?

When your representatives represent the student body in an accurate way.

So what I mean by that is, when it comes to having diversity in gender, sexuality, race, religion, you have all those things in proportion to the university’s demographics. We want to paint a picture that we accurately

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While our students are engaged in producing and promoting media channels and content, our goal is to ensure they are learning to become better thinkers and leaders in the process.

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When it comes to SGA you don’t just listen to the university and the university administrations, you are the voice of the students.

And if they’re telling you they want lower student fees or they want you to advocate for lower tuition, you do that.

JC: Innovation is to improve upon something that already existed, that's my personal definition. As normal as it seems to see an elected official in a suit and tie, at the end of the day we're all students and it's a lot easier to approach a student who's not wearing a suit and tie than one who is. That's an issue for me because the student government isn't politics and it shouldn't be politics. Every student at the University of Houston is considered a member of SGA and I feel like they should be able to feel at home and comfortable going in there.

I want there to be a direct line of communication between the students and me. If you're going to be a transparent president who represents 44,000 people, I feel like you should always be there, 24/7. We want to bring fun out, but not fun in an unprofessional way.

RC: Our party’s platform is unique because it is a combination of both practical initiatives and also dreams, because if you don’t have a dream, how will you make a dream come true?

WZ: We have concrete plans for each platform. When Spirit RED advocates for providing better health services on campus, we know exactly what we're talking about because I, along with other individuals in our party, have worked on the issues CAPS has faced and spoken with Dr. Ngo about what CAPS needs. We already have plans/ agreements in place for open source textbooks to come to campus and we just need to see implementation through.

TC: If elected, what is your first priority going to be?

SB: Our first priority is putting our platform into effect. For example, making sure we fix Get Involved – that’s something student always complain about, and it’s something that’s within our ability under our accessibility platform.

Making sure we keep advocating to the administration, and we want to form a commuter committee, because SGA doesn’t have one right now.

thedailycougar.com/news

JC: Our biggest priorities are, first of all, transparency. So right out the gate, first day in office, we're going to have something called Shasta Chats or Fireside Chats where we have one to two minute videos biweekly or once a month where SGA updates the students on what's going on. Right now, if students want to know what's going on, they have to walk into that office or look at the meeting minutes for the last Senate meeting.

RC: My first priority will be to make it illegal to wear UT and A&M shirts on campus. I have other priorities as well, but this is my first priority.

WZ: My first priority is outreach. If elected, I will be personally visiting classes to ensure that students know that their representatives are available for them. I think it is so important to spread the message about what Student Government can do, and just how powerful student voices can be. If this message is spread, we can truly have a "representative" student government where each person is held accountable for their campaign promises. I think it's important we are on the ground talking to students, being visible, and bringing Student Government to the students. This will be my top priority year round.

NEWS

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Marialuisa Rincon, EDITOR

TC: Why do you want to be the president of SGA?

because I have good ideas. I feel like I'm a good leader.

SB: I believe that the team we’ve built is phenomenal. The amount of people in there with professional experience and the experience in organizations are fundamentally good people. And I know when we get in office we can accurately represent the student body.

I feel like I have the relationships with necessary people to be successful not only with administration, but also to forge relationships with the presidents of RSOs and forge relationships with the presidents and directors of feefunded organizations as well. Cedric made me make up my mind that I wanted to come here. He's also who made up my mind to make me want to do this.

RC: I want to be president if the students want me to be president. I’m giving them the option, and they will decide whether or not I want to be president because I only want what the students want.

JC: I came here around this time three years ago, to an event called Cougar Connection. It was an event that they invited all the black students who were prospects at UH to come to. It was all black faculty and black staff there.

There was a guy there, his name was Cedric Bandoh and he was the current SGA president. I told myself I wanted to be him, and so be him I did. I had experience in student government because in middle school, I was running for vice president of the student council. In high school, I ran for president two years in a row and I always knew that whatever school I went to, I wanted to run for student government

WZ: Making a difference. I, like many other Cougars, love this campus more than anything in this world. However, there are real changes that need to be made. We are ranked last in the state of Texas for mental health services.

Our commuter population misses classes and are late to tests because of parking. Our low-income and middle class students are barely able to afford textbooks because the average price students will pay for textbooks are $655.00/year. This is the reality we live in. As someone who loves this University, I want to fix these problems we have. I can promise you this much: I will make a positive difference.

Read the complete interviews online at thedailycougar.com

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4 | Wednesday, February 22, 2017

NEWS 713-743-5314

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Marialuisa Rincon, EDITOR

EXIT INTERVIEW

A president says goodbye: Shane Smith muses on his term and the future Reflecting on his administration's high and low points , Smith prepares to pass the torch to his successor April 1 nice because you get people with new energy in, you make changes frequently, but it’s so easy to get sidetracked with things that don’t matter.

I said at the beginning of the year that I wanted to keep a narrow focus – focus hard on some really important things – and we did that.

But, you always go back and think, well, what if we hadn’t done this or that. You always reevaluate options.

There are a million little things I’d do differently I think I’ve learned from.

But, all in all, you can’t complain about how you got there.

TC: What was your biggest mistake?

Smith's administration was marked by campus-wide initiatives. Under his administration, the Administration and Finance Committee have been working to repair the University's current dining situation | Justin Cross/ The Cougar

MARIALUISA RINCON

NEWS EDITOR @LUCYRINCONB

Since winning the 2016 Student Government Association election with 58.6 percent of the vote, Project Red: Better Food. Better Wi-Fi. Better Parking's Shane Smith has led his administration through a national debate, proposed cutting student fee funding to all departments by one percent and reformed the campus dining system.

Smith's term as president began April 1, a month after the election and exactly a year before his successor is due to take his place; but his involvement in student leadership has spanned nearly his entire college career.

Under Smith, the Senate voted to join the Texas Student Government Coalition. This membership will allow current and future SGA administrations to advocate to the Texas legislature on behalf of UH. The Cougar sat down with Smith to reflect on the controversies and successes that punctuated his administration — and on what's to come for SGA.

during the elections.

And there were a lot of people who said we’d never do it. Those three things, in particular are really special.

TC: You emphasized action over legislation in your term. What is an example of when this has been implemented?

SS: Any of the things we’ve worked on – parking, dining, break. We actually have a resolution coming through related to fall break, so that’ll be done. The last step of the puzzle is approval by the academic calendar committee.

We have taken the project to the provost, who really liked it. We took it to the provost staffer who manages the academic calendar, he really liked it.

We are very optimistic, but there’s still that final piece left. We’ve accomplished all these projects and made all these changes, and almost none of them had any legislation.

In general, we have emphasized getting work done, not writing a bill.

The Cougar: What is the crown jewel of the 53rd administration?

TC: From your perspective, did you fulfill your campaign promise of Better Food, Better Parking, Better Wi-Fi?

Shane Smith: I think there are a lot of options. Dining and fall break definitely come to mind, but I might go with parking because it impacts the most number of people and it’s something we campaigned heavily on and we were really excited about

SS: I do. I think the University IT department is strong, the Wi-Fi is better than it was a year ago, but it’s important to recognize how on top of things they already were. They knew what they were doing, they cared about students, they launched great

programs like 24-hour texting about Wi-Fi problems, and at least during the day, they’ll send someone out to your location if they can’t fix it.

I’m confident that all three of those are in significantly better shape than they were a year ago.

TC: What lasting effect did #RemoveRohini have on your administration?

SS: It started a discussion around some things that needed to happen – those are very campus-based, but they fit into a national discussion – one that we needed to have and one that a lot of people don’t want to have.

But, we have to because there are problems. So it did generate a conversation both within the organization, as well as out of the organization, within campus, beyond campus. It also made me better equipped as a leader and even as a person.

I think that I learned skills handling that and going through that made us better. I don’t want to repeat it, but you learn from things like that. I don’t reflect on it fondly, but from any mistake you hope you can learn from it. It was a really hard time actually. It made us better.

TC: What would you have done differently?

SS: Many things, I learn from everything I do. I think one thing that we as SGA have to keep in mind, is how short our time is. It’s

SS: Communicating what we did, we didn’t do a job of that. We worked really hard and we have quite legitimately accomplished more than any other SGA you’ll see, past or present. I’m proud of the people that worked hard to make that happen, but we didn’t do a good enough job talking about what we did.

Some people know what we’ve done, some people have seen the direct impact, some people have been around and it’s been made and know what’s happening. But, we did not have an effective enough PR push this year.

We communicated individual pieces well, but we didn’t communicate our whole accomplishments well until this point. That’s a mixed blessing because part of me says, you should focus more on the actual initiatives and worry less about talking about them, which is what we’ve done.

We’re in wrap up stages so now we’re talking about what we’ve done.

Part of me thinks that’s the right way to do it, but looking back I recognize the value of marketing as you’re going. If we had done a better job of that, more people would know of our impact.

But, we’re not in it for the credit, we’re not in it for the recognition.

TC: What surprised you most about being president?

SS: How many little things come up. You spend so much of your time – and I’ve been here most weeks for 40 to 50 hours – dealing with the problems of running a 75 member organization. There are so many problems that come up, from financial or personnel appointments, to a million little random things. So much of your time goes to things you don’t get to choose.

I got better at saying no, I want to

work on this initiative or this project.

And finding people who help the organization run better as a whole.

I absolutely couldn’t have gotten through the year without the people who supported the administration and the people who have made it possible for me to do my job.

TC: What do you hope to achieve in the time you have left?

SS: There are still pieces that need to fit into place, so there’s dining stuff coming, and that’s something I’ll be working on even after I leave office. I’ll still be the chair of the Food Services Advisory Committee and be working on those initiatives. We’ve begun a lot of the major changes, but changes like that get implemented.

I just want to wrap up a lot of these things TC: What advice would you give your successor?

SS: Tune things out. You’ve got a job to do and your commitment is to the students and to working on things that improve their lives.

You hear a lot of things. People will always criticize, and it’s valuable to listen to everybody, you have to hear it, because there's often valuable things in it from random people that you've never met and you can learn a lot from. But you also have to stay focused.

There's a writer that said, "Some people are worth listening to, other people should be white noise in the background of your success."

Finding the people that will help you be better and listening to those people, and surrounding yourself with people that will make you a better person and a better leader.

Stay focused on the things that matter.

Recognition of the people that do the job is important. A lot of the people that do this and have made this year possible, do it without any expectation of credit or thanks.

Most of the things we work on will be implemented after we're gone and we won't get credit for them.

We don't really care. But, the people that work hard to do it and take the criticism, the team we've had and the people — again, I'm just so appreciative.

The year that we've had would not have been possible without some people that really made it happen.

And they deserve thanks.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2017 | 5

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NEWS

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Marialuisa Rincon, EDITOR

BLURB

Who are you really voting for? A look at each party's platform

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MEET YOUR 2017

Learn all about the president, vice president and s Platform

spirit red

Improve parking, health services, textbook prices. undergraduate at-large

bauer

engineering

fahad rehan

dena moghtader

klim mathews

khan pham

Cross-major collaboration, financial aid, develop afforable on-campus housing

Work toward making students feel safer and housing more affordable

Housing affordability, improve student service system, equal treatment for RSOs

Improve advising, tutoring, career placement.

ryan ensmann

Advising system, tutoring, career opportunities to students not in RSOs

class Harrison Fletcher

Social activities, student engagement.

honors garret clark

Expand service learning, university transparency.

24-hour study lounge for CLASS students only

pharmacy westley eure

College of Pharmacy parking.

Sara Rehman

Civic engagement, activism, community engagement

katy yu

stephanie nweke

Writing lab for CLASS students, advising, social and professional gatherings

Reform liberal studies and foreign language curriculum, tenure for African American professors.

COTA

gcsw

michelle debelen

questella alfred

Awareness of college events, community outreach, partnership with student media.

winni zhang

adrian hernandez

camille corales

Jacob McLaney

Quinton Beaubouef

Zeel Vora

Improve advising, organization representation and tutoring within Bauer

Creating an engiImplement vision neering council with of new school, leaders from all increase student major organizations engagement.

More engineering minors, alumni and intercollegiate relations, awareness of CAPS.

24-hour study area in Farish Hall, pre-health professional minor

hrm

architecture

thomas mcculloch

Improve curriculum, increase cultural studies.

devon bush

Improve student experience, university costs.

technology

Michelle tran

Carlos IĂąiguez

Community engagement, research opportunities, community service

Dedicate physical Implement vision space to school, organizaof new tions, peer tutoring, increase student and studying. engagement.

Gina Hong

Chelsea cheung

Research opportunities for underclassmen

College socials and events, fix degree plans, more minors.

cameron tromba

Add parking spaces, simplify permit purchasing, improve campus medical facilities.

harold garcia

Improving advising, college unity, improve campus wifi and awareness of IT services.

Improve parking, health services, textbook prices.

Platform

Fill fountains with gelatin, promote local rap artists, gauge student input for Quads replacement.

COTA

independent

Vice Presidential Nominee

education

nsm maddie wilson

Presidential Nominee

niza garcia

Implement vision of new school, increase student engagement.

voteformeme nsm andrew omead Ebrahimian

Study groups, advising, career fairs.

pharmacy lauren le

Parking, dining options, school spirit.

Presidential Nominee

Vice Presidential Nominee

robert comer

true furrh

class

bauer

gabriela zeyala

sara el-loubani

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

Tutoring, making coursework less intense.

SGA Candidates

senator candidates who will be representing you.

Presidential Nominee

Vice Presidential Nominee

jordyn chaffold

farah islam

undergraduate at large

Improve International Student Services.

berenice espinoza

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

erika jacobs

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

faith kelly

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

ines esponda

matthew stell

Transparency, diversity, student engagement with RSOs.

More CLASS advising and career fairs, improving international student experience.

Improve cross-departmental relations, social and networking events, more advisers.

pranav harish

No Friday classes, better class utilities.

Vice Presidential Nominee

shawn bhatia

seth crawford

Marketing UH services, improve Get Involved website.

yuvani ochoa

Campus safety.

Textbook prices, transparency, student engagement.

samir Nassar morales

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

valeria campos

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

davis darusman

Promote student involvement, expand RSO networks.

Awareness of minors and programs.

engineering raza syed

Advising, partnership between HRM and Bauer, grade replacement policy.

honors

class chaveli solis

amethyst rogers

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

nsm

george christian gabel

Extracurricular activities for CLASS students.

ayodele shofoluwe

Transparency within Implement vision SGA, diversity and of new school, inclusion, student increase student involvement and engagement. education.

technology

mustapha ahmed-kaddar

Create content network for NSM courses, improve advising, social events.

holly savoie

Improve lab videos, acccesible advising, networking events.

chet ball

Transparencyvision within Implement SGA, diversity and of new school, inclusion, student increase student involvement and engagement. education.

kahil glenn

Engagement Implement vision with RSOs. of new school, increase student engagement.

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

redvolution Bauer

valentin perez

honors

bo harrischarran

Platform

Presidential Nominee

daisy salazar

education

tamor khan

hrm

undergraduate at large

Transparency within SGA, diversity and inclusion, student involvement and education.

class

bauer

christopher caldwell

mohammad khallaf

Platform

house of innovation

gabriel silva

Cut frivolous spending, empower and advocate for marginalized, undocumented students.

jeremy brandt

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

michael greer

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

sAmar mathur

Increase hands-on experiences, graduation rates, student engagement in RSOs.

law

education

andrew freedman

mohammad jamil

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

Implement vision of new school, increase student engagement.

hrm tooba iqbal

Implement vision of new school, increase student engagement.

technology

nsm praneeth Kambhampati

adelle flores

Student mentoring, Implement vision improving Get of new school, Involved, increase student student engagement engagement.in RSOs.

Affordability, Implement vision accessibility, of new school, diversity. increase student engagement.

jordan yarbrough

Affordability, accessibility, diversity.

christopher lamonte

Make advising easier to access, upgrade college's computer lab equipment.

ashley jain

Affordability, accessibility, diversity

architecture veronica pesenti

24-hour coffee and food stand in Hines College, UHin5 program, student engagement.

8 | Wednesday, February 22, 2017

OPINION 713-743-5304

thedailycougar.com/opinion

opinion@thedailycougar.com

Thomas Dwyer, EDITOR

53RD ADMINISTRATION

What SGA executive candidates boast, lack

REDvolution must reveal entire party platform to students, not stagger it

REDvolution, led by presidential candidate Shawn Bhatia and vice presidential candidate Seth Crawford is focusing its platform on affordability, accessibility and diversity for the student body.

Both candidates are heavily involved through multiple facets of the school and its organizations.

However, as Farah Islam of the House of Innovation party showed them during the vice presidential debate, perhaps the party is not

as familiar with the school and the way it operates as it should be.

The platform chose to stagger the release of its platform as the election draws nearer. A better tactic would have been to release the entire platform

Shawn Bhatia. | Jasmine Davis/The Cougar

when they started and then focus on specific details of it and explaining them as the election nears.

That way, students who wanted to know more about it would not have to be searching for an entire picture and only get fragments of it.

The party is also

advocating freezing or reducing mandatory student fees. The bulk of mandatory fees go back into student organizations. Reducing the amount fees come in would only make it harder for student organizations to secure funds for their endeavors.

A better idea may be to make some fees — for example, the recreation fee — optional. That way, students who wanted to use the Rec would pay for it, and

students who did not want to use it would not be forced to pay for something that does not benefit them.

REDvolution has a lot of potential with Bhatia and Crawford at the helm. They cannot afford to squander any of it. In The Cougar's poll asking followers who won the VP debate last week, Crawford was trailing Farah Islam of the House of Innovation party by a mere 3 percent.

VoteforMeme needs more realistic platform projects, less ridiculous ones Right out of the gate, VoteforMeme has the best social media and outreach presence out of any of the parties it’s running against. The memes are dank and also hit close to home for many students at the University.

Robert Comer has experience as the Chief of Staff in the current SGA administration. This means he has extensive experience with SGA and how it does business.

However, his vice president, True Furrh, shows inexperience.

This is understandable because

he is a freshman. empty fountain in Because of this fact, Cullen Family Plaza Comer will have to with Jell-O…not so put in extra work to much. support his party.

However, the Back to the memes memes make the that the platform is platform very run on: the platform appealing to stuis composed of 16 dents because it initiatives. Of those, is something with some are feasible, which students are Robert Comer. | Julie like playing more able to relate. The Araica/The Cougar Houston rap during memes about parkfootball games. The ing and the fountain rest, like filling the currently are especially accurate about

the issues they portray and how many students feel about them.

This gives VoteforMeme a lot of power with its outreach among students. While it is evident that the party means well for students, they most likely will be unable to follow through on many of their initiatives.

Of their realistic initiatives, some are very good. They want to incorporate student design into the new housing that is scheduled to replace the Quadrangle.

They also want to have subsi-

dized Metro fares for students.

Students would no doubt most likely end up paying more in student fees for free Metro. However, it is something that could really benefit students and make it an incentive for them to utilize that resource.

According to The Cougar’s post-vice presidential debate poll, Furrh’s performance brought up the rear out of the four candidates. It will be crucial for Comer to make up the lost ground in the presidential debate.

House of Innovation should run on initiatives instead of sweeping ideals The House of Innovation party is spearheaded by presidential candidate Jordyn Chaffold and vice presidential candidate Farah Islam.

Right out of the gate, Islam is a vital asset to the success of this party. She has extensive knowledge about fee-funded organizations due to her time as the vice chair of the Student Fees Advisory Committee in the fall. That knowledge proved to be essential during the debate, especially when she corrected

REDvolution VP Diversity. This candidate Seth allows the party to Crawford multiple have an outsider's times. perspective to the Another positive entire campaign and quality, while also also stand out as a potentially negative, party of common is that the party is students. composed primarily The party's of members that weakest point is its have not had an platform. Instead of Jordyn Chaffold. | Couraffiliation with SGA. tesy of Jordyn Chaffold having initiatives to Chaffold currently focus on, the party holds the post of has ideals that it Special Adviser for Campus wants to apply to their admin-

istration if elected. As Spirit RED vice presidential candidate Adrian Hernandez said in the debate, "Attributes aren't going to affect the student body; it's the projects that we work on."

House of Innovation needs to have more ideas for its administration than just to improve student-SGA relations if elected.

Their main goals are to change the way SGA interacts with the student body in an effort to draw more students into the organization, as well as have

students become more involved and knowledgeable about it.

On social media, the party does a decent job. It replies quickly to inquiries, according to Facebook.

Islam barely snagged the lead in The Cougar's poll asking followers who they thought won the debate. Chaffold will have to use his knowledge from the four committees he is on in order to maintain his party's position as a front runner in the debate poll.

Spirit RED must release in-depth details on platform ideas to students Spirit RED is headed by presidential candidate Winni Zhang and vice presidential candidate Adrian Hernandez. The party’s main initiatives are to improve parking, health services and textbook prices.

These are all good things to want to improve upon (especially health services). However, there are no actual plans outlined for them anywhere on their social media that explain how exactly the party plans on taking care of any of those initiatives.

The party website contains expla-

nations of the things addressed.

Zhang and Hernandez The only informawant to improve, but tion found on any of has no real description their social media of how the changes are was about textbooks, going to be made. For and it was about example, the website something that SGA states that the party has already been wants to move CAPS doing: lobbying the from its current locastate government tion “to a nicer facility.” for open source Winni Zhang. | Courtesy Where is this facility? Is of Spirit RED textbooks. Lowering it already built? If so, is textbook prices will it vacant? These are all most likely not be important questions that must be something that the student body

will ever be against in the future.

The party and its members do bring several strengths to the table.

Zhang and Hernandez, along with several students running in their party, are incumbent members of SGA. Zhang is the current Deputy Chief of Staff and Hernandez is the senator for the Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

This is important because it means that they are already familiar with the system as well as all of the committees overseen by it.

One potentially unethical quality

about the party is that they inherited and repackaged former party Project Red’s Facebook page, and with that, all the people who were subscribed to Project Red’s page.

According to the poll hosted by The Cougar on Twitter, Hernandez was the third best performing candidate from the vice presidential debate hosted by CoogTV. In the presidential debate on Feb. 22, Zhang must hold her party down against SGA Chief of Staff and VoteforMeme candidate Robert Comer.

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H I G H

S T R E E T

10 | Wednesday, February 22, 2017

OPINION 713-743-5304

thedailycougar.com/opinion

opinion@thedailycougar.com

Thomas Dwyer, EDITOR

STAFF EDITORIAL

Students should vote in SGA elections It is important that we have a voice in selecting campus leaders

F

or a student body which, by and large, believes its student government doesn’t do enough, far too few students are actually voting on who represents them.

In spring 2016, just under 43,000 students at the University of Houston had the opportunity to vote in the election for the Student Government Association. Of that 43,000, just over 10 percent exercised that right.

It only takes a simple majority to elect an SGA president (including during the runoff ).

Meaning that in 2016, just over 2000 students elected the most powerful student representative at Texas’ third largest public university.

Not only do members of SGA have the ability to appoint and confirm students to the Student Fees Advisory

Committee, which directs nearly $23 million, in addition to other committees which oversee aspects of nearly every area of the University. Some of them are paid, via student fees, to do it.

Members of the executive board make anywhere from $5500 to $9600 during their tenure in office.

While it may not be as impactful as other levels of government, UH’s student government is an democracy – intended to operate by the students and for the students.

In order for a democracy to operate effectively, the people are responsible for performing their most important civic duty: voting.

If SGA isn’t effective enough for students, it could be because there is a lack of student participation.

If we want to complain

about how our student leaders don’t represent us, we must, first, do everything in our power to ensure that they do represent us. In a constituency where only 10 percent of eligible individuals vote, it is unreasonable to expect that persons outside of that minority will feel represented

by SGA. Democracy cannot survive without active input from the people – more than the voting 10 percent of the people, that is.

While the current administration, under Student Government Association President Shane Smith, will be coming to an end in less than six weeks, students still have an opportunity to voice their opinion before the year is out. The election for the 54th Administration will begin on Feb. 28.

TRENDING CONVERSATIONS THAT MATTER E N G A G I N G I N T H E B E S T O F W H AT ' S T R E N D I N G O N L I N E . . . I N P E R S O N .

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Whether they want better parking, affordable textbooks or more easily accessible student leaders, students have an important choice to make.

More than 80 candidates are running under four parties and as independents, vying for positions ranging from school senator to the president of SGA. It is easy to forget about senators during election season, but these representatives, especially at UH, hold more power than you might think.

Senators in the current administration authored legislation to create a mentorship program in the College of the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, served on committees advocating for better on-campus dining and advocated for a fixed tuition program in the School of Architecture.

The Cougar will be compiling a database of senatorial candidates, including their major, their classification and their platform, making the decision even easier than in the past.

It’s hard to think of an acceptable excuse not to vote when the election will be held through Get Involved on accessUH, and students can cast their ballots from the comfort of wherever they choose, as long as it has wi-fi.

If that isn’t enough to ensure the election is easily accessible, voting will be held over the course of three days.

That’s right, students can devote five minutes of their time, sometime between midnight on Feb. 28 and noon on March 2, in order to play their part in this year’s election.

It is a lot easier to set aside five minutes of your time, to login to Get Involved instead of checking social media just once, than it is to suffer through an entire year of what you believe to be a useless governing body.

Regardless of if you vote, you are paying these students to represent you.

It only makes sense to ensure they’re people you feel are qualified. editor@thedailycougar.com

EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR IN CHIEF

Trey Strange

MANAGING EDITOR

Alex Meyer

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Leah Nash

OPINION EDITORS

Thomas Dwyer Jorden Smith ARTS EDITORS

Karis Johnson Karin Keller PHOTO EDITORS

WEB EDITOR

Emily Burleson NEWS EDITORS

Marialuisa Rincon Julia Araica Jasmine Davis SPORTS EDITORS

Justin Cross Ajani Stewart SENIOR STAFF

Camille Mullery Katie Santana Peter Scamardo

Leonard D. Gibson III JD Smith

STAFF EDITORIAL The Staff Editorial reflects the opinions of The Cougar Editorial Board (the members of which are listed above the editorial). All other opinions, commentaries and cartoons reflect only the opinion of the author.

Opinions expressed in The Cougar do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Houston or the students as a whole.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Cougar welcomes letters to the editor from any member of the UH community. Letters should be no more than 250 words and signed, including the author’s full name, phone number or e-mail address and affiliation with the University, including classification and major. Anonymous letters will not be published. Deliver letters to N221, University Center; e-mail them to letters@thedailycougar.com; send them via campus mail to STP 4015; or fax to (713) 743-5384. Letters are subject to editing.

GUEST COMMENTARY Submissions are accepted from any member of the UH community and must be signed with the author’s name, phone number or e-mail address and affiliation with the University, including classification and major. Commentary should be limited to 500 words. Guest commentaries should not be written as replies, but rather should present independent points of view. Deliver submissions to N221, University Center; e-mail them to letters@thedailycougar.com; or fax them to (713) 743-5384. All submissions are subject to editing.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2017 | 11

PUZZLES

OPINION

thedailycougar.com/opinion

Thomas Dwyer, EDITOR

STUDENT LIFE

SGA must attract attention for involvement

T

ACROSS 1 Whisky barrel 5 Visit on the go 10 “Ready, willing and ___” 14 Source of pain 15 Wait patiently 16 ___ Bator (Mongolian capital) 17 Sinks quickly 20 Start taking effect, as winter 21 Hoop locale, often 22 Pout 25 Clothing line 26 Faux things?

29 Supply startup money 31 East African republic 35 Biggest club 36 Distinctive style 38 It keeps the infield dry 39 Takes over responsibility for something 43 Detractor 44 Kitchen appliance 45 Address abbr., sometimes 46 “Conventional” accumulated knowledge 49 Supreme Norse god 50 Field covered with grass 51 Grammar class subject 53 Student no more 55 Rolled with the punches 58 “___ Beacon Teaches Typing” 62 Moves on to a new

topic Climax Ship’s low deck Sandwich cookie Cry of glee on the playground 69 Invalidates or voids 70 Husky voice characteristic DOWN 1 Dirty rotters 2 Unit of land 3 Close-up or cutaway, e.g.

4 French soldiers’ hats 5 Buddy 6 Japanese “belt” 7 State highway 8 What creative brainwaves produce 9 Not as far off 10 Robots, collectively .11 Slimy menace of ’50s horror 12 Country pathway 13 New Orleans-toAtlanta dir.

18 Extinguishes (with “out”) 19 Shredded cabbage 23 “Little” comic strip character created in 1935 24 Breaks small pieces off from 26 Largest indigenous American fruit 27 Blackberry drupelets, e.g.

28 Divisions or offshoots 65 66 67 68

30 “I’ll have the same” 32 Concerning birth 33 Transported by van 34 Sleeping disorder, for some 37 Valerie Harper’s TV series 40 One being held for ransom (Var.) 41 “___ Under the Sun” 42 Deaden or dull 47 Clumsy one’s exclamation 48 Meat from a sheep 52 Kind of jacket worn in the ’60s 54 Captain’s superior 55 Bow of the foot 56 Rotunda topper 57 Wooded valley 59 Aloe ___ 60 Desserts that can produce chills 61 Common street sign’s command 62 Crow relative 63 Fa-la link 64 They deliver the goods

he Student Government Association will have to step up its game if it wants to have more student involvement in the elections.

Last year, barely more than four thousand students voted in the elections THOMAS which comes DWYER down to about OPINION EDITOR 10 percent.

The elections are less than a week away and there has been little to no outreach about the elections.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

SGA has been trying harder than ever before this year in an effort to get more students civically involved whether it be by going to meetings, town halls or other SGA events.

The more students who are actually involved with SGA — whether it be as senators or as

students attending meetings — the more accurately SGA can reflect the needs and wants of students as well as carry out initiatives on their behalf.

The Cougar did a man on the street asking student what they thought about SGA. The general consensus was that not enough students know about SGA or what it does and that SGA needs to reach out harder to the student body.

While I agree with the statements. It's difficult to figure out how SGA can reach out to student in an effective manner in order to cultivate that sense of involvement.

The easiest way to do it is with social media. SGA has already done a good job of using social media to announce it's events to followers.

At a large level, SGA does its best at appearing to students.

Yet at lower levels, this is not the case. As a CLASS student, I only know who a couple of my senators are, much less when they are

available to meet and what they are working on.

At the very least, senators should hold regular town hall meeting with their constituents in an effort to find out what they want or need and what they should focus on doing.

It should also be something that the main SGA social media pages publicize. At least that way, SGA is providing more opportunities for students to interact with leaders in a more intimate manner.

Transparency and outgoingness are paramount to the success of forging a relationship with the student body. Yet, like the man on the street brought up, it is difficult to go about finding a solution to those two elements.

I look forward to seeing how the upcoming administration will try to solve this problem and become a bigger element in student life.

Opinion editor Thomas Dwyer is a broadcast journalism sophomore and can be reached at opinion@ thedailycougar.com.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2017 | 12

713-743-5303

thedailycougar.com/sports

SPORTS

sports@thedailycougar.com

Leonard D. Gibson III, EDITOR

Looking to defend their conference title, sophomore Amere Lattin leads the Cougars to the American Athletic Conference Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Alabama. | Courtesy of UH Athletics

TRACK & FIELD

Title hopes for men and women in Birmingham PETER SCAMARDO

SENIOR STAFF WRITIER @PLSCAMARDO2

Eight meets have come and gone for the Cougar track & field team, and in that span, the Cougars won numerous events, rose and fell in the NCAA charts and set five new school records.

All they have left to do is perform their best when they travel to Birmingham, Alabama for the American Athletic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships.

The Cougars enter the meet with 11 athletes, eight men and three women, on top of their respective events on the Conference charts.

They have 33 total athletes ranked in the top 5 of 20 events.

“We have to go and perform at our best,” said head coach Leroy Burrell. “They all know what we’re trying to do, what our objective is. We’ve talked about it all year.

Now’s the time to step up to the occasion.”

Sprinting for gold As has been the case all season long, the sprinting units have the

most athletes with the top marks, seven for the men and four for the women.

Seniors Cameron Burrell and Tori Williams lead the way for the men and women, respectively.

Burrell ranks No. 1 in the 60m and No. 2 in the 200m, while Williams ranks No. 1 in the 200m and No. 3 in the 60m.

Both are coming off top 5 finishes at the Tyson Invitational, where they set season bests to earn those top place designations.

Also at the Tyson Invitational, both the men and women 4x400m relay teams set the top conference times. The men ran 3:09.95, finishing sixth, while the women ran 3:38.54, finishing fourth.

In total, six top marks were set in the Cougars’ final weekend of competition.; sophomore hurdler Amere Lattin and senior thrower Cameron Cornelius were among them.

Lattin set the third fastest time in school history, 7.74s, with his third place finish in the 60m hurdles and Cornelius threw 18.16m in his shot put victory.

“Conference, we should win

that,” Lattin said. “Conference is the least of our worries right now.

We’re going for a bigger picture, and that’s the indoor and outdoor national title. We have nothing but unbelievable talent. We have the tools to get it done.”

The men have bought into the message from assistant coach Carl Lewis that they are talented enough to compete for a national title. While there is a strong likelihood that they will indeed compete for a title, they need to get more athletes qualified should they hope to win one.

Men like Cornelius and freshman multi-event competitor Nathaniel Mechler sit outside the NCAA Top 24, the mark to qualify, and this weekend presents their final opportunity to improve their marks.

Freshmen 'leading the way' The women have championship expectations of their own with a chance to win their first conference title since 2006.

They have been energized by the presence of a freshman class with talent across numerous

events. While Williams, senior distance runner Selena Sierra, No. 6 in the 5000m, and junior jumper Tonye’cia Burks, No. 3 in the high jump, have kept their competitive form, the number of new athletes has the women believing they can claim a conference title for themselves.

“I think it set the standard really high,” assistant coach Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie said. “Normally you have freshman coming in who need to be nurtured and mentored. The freshmen coming in have taken the rope and are leading the way.”

Sprinters Sierra Smith and Samiyah Samuels have been highlights of the new faces.

Smith holds the second best conference times among the Cougar sprinters: No. 5 in the 60m, 7.49s, and No. 4 in the 200m, 24.23s. Samuels, in addition to ranking in the top 10 for the 60m, holds the top conference mark for the long jump, 6.08m.

The most surprising performer for the women has been sophomore thrower Taylor Scaife. After placing ninth at last year’s AAC

Indoor Championships with a personal best of 18.56m, Scaife astronomically improved in year two.

Each meet, she slowly improved her mark until she took the school record with a 20.44m throw at the Charlie Thomas Invitational, No. 2 in the conference behind Annette Echikunwoke of Cincinnati.

Cincinnati looks to be the major threat to the women’s title hopes. Apart from the fact the women only have 26 athletes going when normally they have 32, the Bearcats hold the top marks in five events.

“I really want to see the women have that opportunity,” Burrell said. “We have the personnel. We have the talent. But we also have to go there and get it done when it matters most. I’m really confident that many of our women will show up and be just that when we really need them. But at the same time, we’re not necessarily in the driver’s seat. I would be a little more confident if we had a few more bullets to shoot.” sports@thedailycougar.com