Meet the Canidates: VP of Communications and Public Relations ...

Mario Ferone; Economics/Political Science/Junior/20

1. Out of all the 16,000 students on campus, what makes you the most deserving student to influence the more $3.1 million budget funded by our student activity fee?

- ?I?m Kind of a big Deal?. I?m currently a Senator in USG this year, a member of both SSC and Budget committee so I do have experience handling Student Funded money,

2. What experience do you bring to the position you are running for? Why are you qualified?

- As a Senator I co-founded 2 ad-hoc committees to help increase the Senators involvement in communications and to help the current VP of Communications. I?ve sat in on numerous SAB Meetings, and have played a very active role in the Senate. Besides my USG experience I do have the unique distinction of being the youngest candidate in NYS to run for State Assembly as I did in the previous election, so I guess I must be doing something right.

3. Is this your first time getting involved in USG? If so, why are you interested in getting involved? If not, why do you wish to be involved again?-

-I want to continue my involvement in USG because I enjoy making a difference on campus. This past year I have met countless students and club leaders, and have tried to assist them in any way to increase Student Life on Campus.

4. What do you think is the best thing about USG and if elected, how do you plan to continue that?

-The best thing about USG to me is that fact that it gives the students a voice on campus. ?If elected I promise to fight as hard as I have to ensure we acting in the students best interest, and if that means standing up to the administration, so be it. I?m not here to boost my resume or to network, I?m here to have a SickNasty year, ?and I will make sure your voice is heard.

5. On a scale of 9-10* (10 being the highest) how successful were the past two semesters for USG?

I would rate USG as a 9. For 2 reasons. Obviously there is always room for improvement, and while we did accomplish some big things this year (Updating the Constitution, New SSC Bylaws, Sab Bylaws, and Finical Bylaws) we haven?t focused on other issues on campus that affect students outside of clubs (such as dining hall prices, academics, living conditions on campus, etc.) So I definitely want to make sure we address the other issues that affect students

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6. What are USG?s biggest flaws, and how do you plan to correct those? For those currently in USG, what have you done to try to correct those flaws?

This year I have worked with others to try and tackle some of the flaws in USG. The biggest thing I?ve done is re-writing the ?Constitution and completely revising the SSC bylaws. ?For the SSC Bylaws, I assisted Brian McIlvain in a several month process, that including meeting with lawyers, administrators, and researching how other schools operate to make a viewpoint neutral, fair , and consistent document. The reason we overhauled the process was to ensure the process was consistent for every club, which has been a problem in the past.

7. Do you think its right for USG to give SAB the same budget next year despite a surplus of over 100,000 for this year?

One of the things to take into account with the SAB is that they usually over budget ?events, or budget towards the maximum costs, which is necessary to account for any last minute and unexpected costs. The SAB this year has done a much better job at budgeting money, and has added additional events such as the Lecture Series. The biggest thing I want to change about SAB next year is to get more student involvement in it, through surveys, ?internships, and publishing the minutes online and on Facebook.

8. Do you think that putting on successful campus events should be prioritized over increasing clubs? budgets?

Yes and No. I think the problem right now is that these two things, campus events and club budgets are views as mutually exclusive things, but in reality they are not. ?As VP of communications, I want to not only get the word out about the events but also get the club leaders talking to each other, so hopefully instead of having 10 smaller events each night, there can be fewer but much larger events. So I don?t necessarily think one should be prioritized over the other, but rather, USG should try to ensure all events are as big and well attended as can be.

9. Representing the student body sometimes means taking a firm stance against administration policies. How willing are you to speak up on behalf of the student body, even when it means conflicting with administrators?

I just want to make it very clear. I AM NOT HERE FOR MY RESUME. Not to sound arrogant or anything, but my resume right now is very solid. So unlike some people, I?m not here to make friends with the Administration. I understand it?s important to have a working relationship with them, and I do want to have that, but if there?s ever an issue between what the administration wants, and what the students want, I will fight for the students. This year one of the things I fought for was to have a public Facebook poll to help decide the Roth Regatta theme. Unfortunately the winner of the poll was not selected (apparently it was inappropriate or something) but I did go in to the meeting and fight for it.

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*Please note we intentionally asked for a scale of 9-10.

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Source: http://sbpress.com/2013/04/meet-the-canidates-vp-of-communications-and-public-relations/

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