SGA presidential candidates debate
issues before 2005-06 election

By Ariel Houchens
Senior Staff Writer

Voters have an unusually large number of candidates to choose from in UNCP’s upcoming elections for Student Government Association (SGA) president/vice-president team.

Students will have three teams to choose from when they go to vote next week - Chris Adams and Siporia Wrighten, Rachel Harbert and Anthony Hunt and Marko Gospojevic and Broch Clinton.

The candidates each have personal goals they plan to achieve if voted into office, but they all have one common goal: Increasing student participation at UNCP.

“We want to let students know about the power and authority they do have through petition,” Clinton, a junior bio-med major from Hillsboro, N.C., said.

Harbert, a junior criminal justice major from Taylorsville, N.C., said she wants to get everybody involved in campus activities.

“I’d like to make the school as fun as possible,” Harbert said.

Adams, a junior music industry major from Newark, N.J., currently holds the public relations office in SGA. He said he plans on making the SGA more accessible to UNCP students, so that their voices will be heard “loud and clearly.”

Parent/professor conference day is currently an issue under consideration at UNCP. The conference day will actively involve parents in a student’s college education.

Most of the candidates are supportive of a conference day and the SGA offered their support in September 2004.

Gospojevic, a junior bio-med major from Yugo-slavia and his running mate, Clinton, agree that UNCP should have a parent/professor conference day for freshman.

“Parents pay for the bills, so they should be involved,” Clinton said.

Adams and Wrighten, a junior biology major from Charleston, S.C., are also supportive of the conference day, but Adams said it should be implemented as an option.

Hunt, a senior biology major from Red Springs, N.C., said he thinks a parent/professor conference day is a good idea. He said it would help students’ transition into the college life.

“The conference would help students adjust to college life and the freedoms that come with it,” Hunt said.

Harbert said she disagrees with the concept of the university allowing professors to report to a parent about a student’s academic performance.

“Once you get into college, I think it’s between the parent and student,” Harbert said.

Harbert said if students still need their parents involved in college, then they might never become independent.