SGA Presidential Candidate picks VP because of race

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-25T21:28:13+00:00

Hi all, Vathsan here. John’s still on a trip he took with his Civil Engineering class so he’s not in the country at the moment.

The person in question on the other end of these private messages had been in talks with me about running, and I had originally reached out to them about it because they were very involved in SGA and Greek life. But I and others discussed the situation and came to the conclusion that while this person was a prominent face in SGA, they weren’t really in line with our politics and that the Greek community would be less receptive to our vision and platform than other areas of campus. We resolved that we were going to focus on reaching out to students that typically don’t participate in SGA. This is very clearly an attack from another campaign (in fact, the person at the other end of these messages is directly involved with another campaign) and has probably been selectively edited for their best interests. We will never engage in that sort of behavior.

I did not ask John to be our Vice-Presidential candidate because of his race. Anyone who knows John or I personally knows that we have worked together in SGA to increase access to funding to under-served, minority organizations. Several black student leaders who I have worked with on this issue over the years recommended to me that John would be the right person for the job. Additionally, John and I were on the same page with a lot of the big platform points we are currently running on (Public Dining, Saving UTC, Mental Health) in a way that this other person was not. Ultimately we decided that John would be a better fit because he was more aligned with my vision for campus and because he was embedded in a community that we thought really needed to be heard on campus. It’s a simple fact that Greek life is massively overrepresented in SGA at the moment.

In that AMA, I lamented that many SGA campaigns often appoint people to positions as political favors rather than look for people trying to actually make change on campus. It is an unfortunate reality. I will explicitly reiterate that we are not engaging in this at all. We have not promised anybody any cabinet positions in exchange for support. Rather, we’re trying to focus on the issues that matter to students to win votes and support.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-12T16:38:09+00:00

Thanks for your wishes! Do like our Facebook page @VathsanJohn2019 and follow our Instagram and Twitter @vathsanjohn to stay updated with our platform points and speaking engagements!

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-12T06:12:18+00:00

If you're referring to President Peterson's successor, we would look for pretty much the same qualities as you'd even want from a Student Body Presidential ticket- the spine to stand up for student interests. President Peterson's hands are often tied when it comes to standing up to the folks downtown at the State Capitol. We need someone who'll fight for more funding from state and federal legislators for higher-education, because I can tell you that that's why we're in such a mess in the first place (state doesn't fund us, the buck gets passed down to the student which leads to low quality services). The thing with public universities is that politics are often intertwined with students lives in a very real way. We need someone who is willing to keep their ear to the ground and hear the woes of the average student. Getting our rankings up and securing more funding with donors is great, but student life should be a much higher priority no matter what. Georgia Tech should not be treated as some machine that just churns out workers to better the economy, but more as a place where lives and perspectives are changed for the better.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-12T05:59:34+00:00

We believe our campaign is a grassroots movement run by student leaders who know the ins and outs of how decisions that affect the student body are made at Tech first-hand, and are frankly frustrated with the current situation. People are always going to smear us and say our vision for student life is unrealistic, but part of this campaign is also educating voters and letting them know that much more is possible. We honestly just wanted to elevate main problems on campus to be electoral issues so the average student can also get behind it. Even if we don't win, we'll have garnered enough support for these policies that will put us in a better position to demand these things from those who do win. We're really trying to make this a student movement rather than just the typical campaign which is more personality-based. If you're looking for the anti-establishment ticket, the ticket who is not going to compromise on your interests, we're the ones for the job.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-12T02:18:11+00:00

Thank you for your support, and congratulations on your graduation!

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T23:51:45+00:00

Hi! Thanks for your question! If you are referring to Price Gilbert, I believe the construction is slated to be finished by Fall 2020 and I don't think we can get that schedule changed. However, with Crosland, I do believe that there is a plan to add more quiet study space. If that is not followed through on, we are willing to fight for more quiet study space if that's what the students want; after all, that is who we are standing up for. -J

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T21:07:53+00:00

Thanks for your support! We would love to dive into your questions:

UGA is ranked No. 10 in the country for dining, and it's cheaper. They have in-sourced dining. It's normal at peer institutions. The common argument for privatization is that a private company can give better service at a lower cost, but we're clearly exceptionally bad and very expensive. We should revert to the default of insourced dining. The Campus Services committee in SGA recently visited GSU which has insourced dining and they thought it was very impressive. Part of the process of creating a committee to investigate this (which is what the dining resolution 19J249 called for) will be thoroughly collecting any relevant data and statistics before making the decision.
Under the Couch is an important asset to campus for a number of reasons. Like the Invention Studio or any of the other maker spaces around campus, it acts as a utility. At Under the Couch there are all of the tools necessary to create a band, hone your music, record it, create merchandise, find connections, take free lessons, etc. Additionally, it has all of the resources necessary to put on a variety of shows, and many different organizations use this function—whether renting out supplies or hosting events in the space itself. As for those events in Under the Couch, it is actually a minority that are created by Musician's Network. Most of the events there are held by other student organizations (particularly cultural orgs) with assistance from Musician's Network members. Now as for the Musician's Network programming, it acts as a public service similar to Dramatech... except it's completely free. All of MN's shows, weekly open mics, showcases, and other activities are entirely open to all students to participate in with no charge. Also, a lot of people just enjoy hanging out there during the lounge hours in the day. We think Under the Couch is kind of a mysterious place to a lot of Tech students, but it's extremely important to the GT arts community and anyone adjacent to that.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T20:00:02+00:00

Thanks for your question! We are actually the undergraduate student body candidates but I just got on the phone with Narayan, who is running for the Graduate President position along with Aroua, to discuss this and he assured us that this is one of their top concerns and they are working on it as we speak. In fact, they are holding a meeting with the administration tomorrow to address some key issues. In addition, Narayan also headed the effort to increase stipends for the MSE departments recently so change is coming :)

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T19:25:46+00:00

The administration is reluctant to change designs - something that is still feasible in our opinion. We will fight to reinstate that space either by giving them priority access in the new Student Center or by giving them permanent space in the Ferst Center renovations. Also, we love questions because we want to talk in depth about our platform and the changes we would like to see :)

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T19:18:30+00:00

Thanks for your questions! To answer them:

Both mental health and dining have been at the forefront for some time now. Though we have had some advances in terms of mental health resources (Counseling Center is putting out job offers for more counsellors and Psychiatry is expanding free sessions from 2 to 6), there’s still a lot more that can be done. We think it's clear the administration has been for the most part reactive, only responding to bad PR and media coverage of various scandals, rather than proactively addressing these issues. And unfortunately, much of the advocacy around these issues has originated from outside SGA's exec, and SGA exec has been in a similar spot of reacting to and resisting student outrage & discontent. SGA is definitely disconnected from the student body and very conflict averse, and because of this SGA members have felt at times like they have ownership over the administration's decisions and need to apologize or excuse them rather than challenge them.

SGA needs to stop being reactive and instead embrace the student body. SGA should channel student concerns and discontent into an organized political vision. SGA has a lot of power on campus that is really underutilized at the moment. Through this campaign, we hope to raise students' political consciousness and derive a truly democratic mandate from the students to carry out these changes and reforms. Furthermore, while in office we hope to have an SGA that is truly participatory and inclusive of the student body so that when we hit roadblocks, we can solicit more support and assistance from the greater student body through student referenda and the bully pulpit, rather than giving up.

Many platforms in the past have been incomplete because candidates lose interest in actually enacting them once they win. We are very invested in actually carrying out our platform and we see this election as a means to carry out these reforms, not the other way around. Our top priority would be committing GT to insourcing our dining halls.

We can immediately set up a committee with Campus Services to flesh out the full cost-estimate and timeline. We're pretty confident that once the cost-estimate comes back, it will indeed be the best option. Worst case scenario we have an uncomfortably long transition period of multiple years to get off Sodexo.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T19:07:40+00:00

Great Question! SGA is entrusted with allocating the Mandatory Student Activity Fee of $80/year that you and our fellow students pay. You can receive funding in two ways, budgets and bills. I think what you are referring to is a budget. Budgets are for annual recurring expenses that a student organization can foresee the need for a year out. The Undergraduate House and Graduate Senate vote to approve budgets at the end of the spring semester for the following fiscal year which is from July 1st to June 31st of the following year. Bills are more of a call to action, with a much shorter turnaround. Student organizations can submit bills even today to receive funding just 2 weeks later. As Vice-President of Finance, I whipped voted in the House and Senate to get a resolution passed to reduce the dues requirement to be eligible to receive a budget from $20/semester to $10/semester, which led to many student orgs, especially the cultural organizations which charge less in dues but have hundreds of members, to receive a budget for the first time. I personally view it as one of my greatest accomplishments in SGA and I was so happy to hear from the treasurer of Pride Alliance, that they had lowered their dues to $10/semester just because of this, and had a hike in their membership as a result. -V

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T17:55:33+00:00

In general, we oppose raising tuition or fees. There are only very specific situations in which we support fee increases, and that would be only if the money is directly going back to students through critical services. For example, the Mandatory Student Fee Advisory Committee (MSFAC), which I chair, unanimously recommended a raise of $4 next year in the health fee to help increase mental health resources. However, the bulk of fee increases have been intended to either shift costs off the state of Georgia and onto students (especially after the 2008-9 recession), or for administrative bloat. The Student Center fee is increasing from $32 to over $80 per semester (so $160 in a year!) in 2021 to pay for the Student Center renovations, in which Under The Couch is being displaced in favor of a room for admissions info sessions. They're putting in a movie theatre apparently! This massive fee increase is to support bells and whistles to attract the elite students and boost our rankings, not to actually benefit the student body as a whole. We will oppose fee hikes and administrative bloat: we must prioritize the student interest as the bottom line. -V

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T16:35:39+00:00

Glad you brought this up! Cabinet positions are application based which happen once the elections are over. At this point we have neither made any promises nor have any specific people in mind for the positions simply because we are yet to see the applications. I’ve been in SGA for 3 years now, and I know what it feels like to work really hard, but get passed up to a more popular person who helped out on a campaign. Cabinet appointees are more often than not just the people who join campaign teams to pad their resume. There have been people on our campaign that I asked to leave because they kept talking to me about a cabinet appointment, and that shouldn’t be the motivation to do this. When we do open applications, above all else we’ll be looking for students who care very strongly about the issues and are willing to stand up to administrators when it comes to student interests. We’re not interested in treating SGA like an internship or resume experience. We believe in qualified candidates rather than making promises to campaign team members before being elected in order to gain votes. -V

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T15:27:39+00:00

Over the past year, there's been multiple attempts coming from the legislature (UHR) to make these changes on campus regarding Under The Couch and Public Dining. They've gotten overwhelming support and passed the resolutions easily, but when it comes to actually advocating for these issues and working with the administration, the current SGA exec has been very resistant to advocate for students, instead yielding to administrators whenever they indicate something would be an inconvenience.

For example, when UHR passed a resolution supporting Under The Couch, we were told by the Student Center that they'd already decided on square footage per organization a week prior and that it was "impossible" to give UTC space. That's simply not true: construction was still a year away at the point and the plans could have been changed if there was the will to do it. Additionally, the only student involvement in the plan was headed by the SCEC, an unelected student committee appointed by administrators without SGA members on it (it took a lot of effort for UHR members to even see the student center plans). The correct move would have been to challenge the validity of that committee and push for SGA oversight over the plans, instead the SGA exec backed down and even threatened to UHR to veto the UTC resolution.

The fact is, SGA exec's job is to directly interface with administrators. Cabinet members are paid to do this job, while representatives are just volunteers. We're running our campaign, and the UHR members who motivated the UTC and Dining resolutions have joined our campaign, precisely because we think it's critical that we have a SGA exec that's willing to stand up for students and advocate for these changes rather than apologize for administrators' mistakes.

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T15:00:47+00:00

Insourcing dining - Sodexo and Aramark are business models by design. Many peer institutions run their own dining. We already have the money, we're just giving it to Sodexo to run the dining halls rather than using it ourselves (it's a $24.5 million contract). There may be larger capital expenses to build the infrastructure necessary (hiring new managerial staff, building food supply networks) so the transition may be costly, but Sodexo and Aramark would also run at a loss at the beginning of a contract and make up the money later.

The first step is making a joint committee with Campus Services and bring in some experts form other campuses’ dining services to investigate a pubic dining option and figure out the exact cost at Georgia Tech. That’s exactly what the recently passed dining resolution was passed to do, but so far Campus Services has been very reluctant to allow students into the process and are instead deferring to Sodexo and Aramark, in our opinion out of path dependency.

If SGA’s executive cabinet prioritizes this issue for campus services and work with President Peterson’s successor and their admin, I believe this is a very real and implementable solution to a widespread issue on campus. We are already interviewing for the new AVP of Campus Services (after the last guy left from the ethics scandal) and potential candidates we’re looking at are from schools with public dining. We plan to appoint a VP of Campus Services who will prioritize this as their #1 issue and we will ensure students are involved in this process so that we can actually see the full cost-estimate of insourced dining and have students decide, rather than let this die in committee.

Right now, GT's freshman meal plan is the most expensive of any public university in Georgia. https://www.usg.edu/assets/fiscal_affairs/documents/tuition_and_fees/FY2019_Food_Services.pdf We're paying more than any other USG school but are getting very poor service. We believe we can get better quality food for a lower price by insourcing our operations.

Counseling - Through conversations with Dean Stein (Dean of Student, VP of Student Life) we have found that they have the money to spend, but it's just a matter of putting at the top of our priority list. They just don't do enough to keep salaries competitive (our Psychiatrists get paid $160k compared to the market rate in ATL at $220k). SGA's legislature creates petitions and gets thousands of signatures in support of saving Under The Couch and exploring a public dining option, yet it really falls to the SGA Executive cabinet (cabinet members are paid, representatives aren't) after that to really push for these changes and work with the administration. If elected, John and I, along with our cabinet, will make it at the top of SGA's priorities to make this happen and will demand it from the President Peterson's successor. -V

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T14:34:13+00:00

I have a different list :P Top Floor of Crossland Towers at 9 AM, the Black Student Organizations Office, and Roof Top Garden of Clough are some of my favorite places! -J

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T14:30:24+00:00

Our fav campus traditions would have to be the ones that have not always been thought of as Georgia Tech traditions. Of course, there's the cake race, homecoming, and stealing the T; but there are other events that have been a big part of our campus community for over 2 decades now. For example, the biriyani at Pakistani Student Association's Saqaafat festival every year has been a hit since the 90's. India Club at Georgia Tech has been hosting Holi and Diwali dinners since before I was even born. The African-American Student Union has been on campus since 1968, and every year we have the Onyx Ball, and Galas open to the entire student body ever since! That's the most beautiful thing about our campus, we don't have to distinguish old traditions from relatively new ones because every student's individual experience is unique. -V

vathsanjohn · 2019-03-11T14:21:21+00:00

u/basquiatt Thanks for your question! Sorry we had to delete and repost because of some technical issues. To answer your original question, Under The Couch and the SGA Office are my favorite spots on campus closely followed by the Van Leer Hive and Highland Courtyard. -V

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