PRESIDENT: This race is between Julie Rice, political science junior, and Rhonda Wilson, accounting and finance junior.

Rice is serving as ASA director and is also a club advocate for ASUA and regional coordinator for National Coalition for Student Empowerment. She plans to help establish a state-based work/study program, in which students get financial aid by working at c ertain major-related jobs in the private sector. Rice also supports the prepayment tuition package, a special bank account that parents open in their child's youth and maintain specifically for funding a college education. Rice finds renovating the Studen t Union to be a higher financial priority than constructing the proposed Integrated Instructional Facility. She does not support charging students for improvements in the computer labs and says this is unfair because not all students use the labs. Compute r enhancements should go on a "wish list," Rice says. She proposes selling 200 basketball tickets for a student section every Monday prior to home games. Currently, 508 student tickets are sold. Concerning GPSC, Rice notes that ASUA needs to be more invol ved with graduates' issues, especially teaching benefits. She holds that if GPSC does decide to become sovereign, the two councils should still lobby the state legislature together to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Wilson currently serves as ASUA Minority Action Council director and has previously held the positions of ASUA Undergraduate Senator, Ombudsperson, research assistant for the ASA directors and registered student lobbyist at the state capitol. Wilson suppo rts the state-based work/study and prepayment tuition programs, and would like as well to work on a state-based loan or grant program. She plans to increase ASUA visibility on campus and wants to publish a quarterly ASUA progress report to inform students of ASUA's dealings with pertinent campus issues. Wilson, like Rice, is opposed to charging students for Student Union renovations and would look into privatizing the Union. She thinks GPSC and ASUA would be more productive as one unit, and wants to addre ss child care as well as teaching benefits. Student government has not taken as active a role as it could in improving the campus climate, Wilson says, and one step toward improving relations is to open student dialogue and invite different groups to voca lize their needs.

Both candidates are in favor of a faculty mentorship program, which pairs faculty members with students and contributes to student awareness of academic procedures. Rice suggests ASUA play a prime role in publicizing the mentorship program, which would be available to all students, and Wilson volunteers that ASUA can help the faculty mentors understand student needs. Both Rice and Wilson support making teacher evaluations public to all students.

The Wildcat listened to both candidates at the presidential forum and chose to endorse Wilson for the position. Both candidates are very experienced and qualified for the job, but Wilson has the greater concern for ASUA publicity and accessibility, a need that was pitifully demonstrated by the 15-member audience at the forum. Wilson's responses were direct and unfettered, and she was more easily able to translate ASUA lingo into layman's terms. The answers given by Rice were more pat and impersonal and di d not go into much explanation of the basic key words and terms used throughout the campaign. Both candidates exhibited traits proving them worthy of consideration for the position, but only Wilson showed herself to have the knowledge of students' needs n ecessary to truly represent them. This savvy, combined with experience and hard work, is what the Wildcat believes it takes to be president of the student body.

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VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMS AND SERVICES: This is a race between Mindy McCollum, a political science and communication sophomore, and Steve Romero, a political science senior.

McCollum has been involved in student government since her freshman year, when she was an ASUA senate aide. She is currently an ASUA undergraduate senator, student representative to the Recreation Center Advisory Board, an ASUA restructuring negotiations team member and activities chair for Alpha Phi sorority. As vice president of programs and services, she wants to keep the escort service under ASUA leadership and expand it to include nighttime walking escorts for students who walk alone. She also wants to keep Spring Fling going and start a letter-writing campaign to alumni to garner financial support for the program.

Romero has been on the Student Union Advisory Council, the New Start summer senate, a presidential staff member and presidential cabinet UBRC director. He wants to expand the Student Union to create more places for students to study, and work for further privatization, citing popular fast food chains as businesses he would like to target. He also wants to increase funding for the escort service and beef up the application process for its members, as well as working on ways to compensate volunteers for the service.

The Wildcat endorses McCollum, because her vision is more realistic and her goals more concrete than Romero's. Her idea to write letters to all incoming freshmen asking for donations to fund the walking escort program is an original approach to a worthy p rogram. While Romero's ideas are solid, McCollum's approach is more down to earth.

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VICE PRESIDENT OF CLUBS AND ORGANIZATIONS: Even though Erin Russell is the only candidate running for this position, she has an impressive set of qualifications and ideas that make her well-suited for the position.

Russell would like to make the process for club funding easier through a simple change in the paperwork. She would like to make the rules for receiving funding clear to clubs. Also on her platform is the reviving of a Club Resource Center, where clubs can go to make letterhead, posters or get other supplies they might need. A monthly newsletter to clubs and organizations is also something she wants to develop. This would include an update on what clubs are doing and how much money is available from ASUA, and present a forum for problems with the system.

Russell has a clear-cut vision for her position and understands what it would take to get the job done. The Wildcat endorses Russell for this position.

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ASUA SENATE: In an election with many different candidates and many different viewpoints, it is sometimes hard to sort through each candidates' platform. The Wildcat endorses the following candidates for the position of undergraduate senator.

• Ryan Anderson, political science junior, is geared to present unique solutions to student problems. He would like to make the Escort Service a one-unit human resource class to compensate the program's volunteers. For students looking for internships, Anderson would like to create an office of internships in the department of student programs so that students can easily access internships. Anderson has realistic viewpoints on campus issues and seems to have the necessary experience and determination to hold a senate position.

• Casey Cuny, marketing and communications sophomore, has been active in ASUA as a senator's aid. He is poised to try registering more student voters and inform students of national political issues. He, like other candidates, addressed the issue of campus security. Unlike other candidates, Cuny had knowledge of the issue and reasoning for his realistic solutions.

• Gilbert Davidson, public management junior, is the only current ASUA undergraduate senate running for re-elect ion. During his term, he completed all of his campaign goals and is currently active in the Student Union project. Davidson clearly has gained a realistic knowledge of ASUA and its doings in his year as senator. He has the confidence and the background to go about doing his job. He hopes to provide better campus facilities and services, including road conditions, Escort Service and the Speaker's Board. Davidson, if elected, would continue to do a solid job as senator.

• J.J. Rico, political science and media arts sophomore, has been active as a Senate aide and seems ready to take the next step. He has been awarded a health mini-grant for a casino-under 21 night for the end of April. This shows Rico is willing to provide for the underage student, as he would like to continue under-21 programs next year as a senator. Rico is also to address on the campus climate issues through forums and on-campus coalitions.

• Lauren Sliger is a molecular and cellular biology and economics junior who has spread her time throughout numerous campus activities, including ASUA. She proposes a "Freshman Forum" that would immediately introduce incoming students to what the UA has to offer. She was well-spoken and gets to the points of the issues she would like to face, if elected.

• Maile Weigele, exercise and sport sciences, has been involved with issues pertaining to health-related matters. Her platform contains this unique, untouched facet of ASUA's ability. She intends to also set up a connection with the Tucson community through the Mayor's Task Force on Youth Violence. Weigele has also has said she would like to take over Gaul Leddel's successful ULC basketball league. Because of her fresh ideas and readiness to do them, Weigele is endorsed by the Wildcat.

The other senate candidates interviewed were Steve Lytle, Jim Howarth, David Kramer, Jim Mellinger, Kim Montanaro, Madison O'Neil and Mary Peterson. All candidates had general ideas about campus issues, but most did not have a clear-cut strategy towards w orking for them. Many felt like they wanted to change a problem, but had not researched ways to go about it. If you vote for any of these candidates, you are voting clearly on what their platform states and what they hope to do in office.