The Daily Cougar is hosting a debate between the three Student Government Association presidential candidates at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in the University Center Houston Room. The debate will be moderated by Associate Vice President for Student Affairs David Small. The candidates are Michael McHugh, Michael Harding and Jared Gogets.
Any comments left on this post will be considered questions for the debate — the moderator will ask the best questions given.
Elections start Monday. Stay tuned to The Daily Cougar for a full ballot and election results.
It seems, given the previous two administrations, there is a learning curve to be to SGA President. Two questions:
1) If you have been in SGA before, is it important to be a part of SGA prior to becoming President?
2) If you have not been a part of SGA before, how do you plan to combat that learning curve without comprising valuable time?
As president, how will you work to legalize marijuana on campus? Selling marijuana in university stores would help raise funds that UH desperately needs to deal with the looming budget shortfall. It would also give students an alternative to alcohol, cigarettes, and medicines to relieve pain, stress, anxiety, and depression. Grades would go up, as would research and employee morale, and quicken the path to Tier 1. It's a win-win situation.
Oh wait, wrong world. 🙂
LMAO! Bob I'll take it that you were being sarcastic.
With the recent concern of gun violence, and the potential shift in the Texas Legislature to allow students and faculty to carry concealed firearms on campus, what are you feelings on the issue and if passed how would you recommend regulation of the policy here at UH?
How do you plan to help veteran students transition from military to civilian life here at the university and what plans do you have to smooth the process for those students to attend UH?
Will there be food at the debate?
One of the most defining moments of any leader is how they respond to failures. We can see this very moment happening with a leader right now on the national stage. What failure(s), in your history of leadership, have affected you most and what have you done to fix the problem or prevent it from happening again? How will you apply what you learned from that failure to SGA?
1. What do you think is your best attribute that would highly qualify you for the position of SGA president?
2. What programs, initiatives and/or events have you implemented at the University through your particular college?
3. List one organization you are in. Since you have been a member in the organization how have you improved its effectiveness to the University and the UH community. List examples and explain.
4. Are you active in SGA? If so, how? and if you are not, why?
5. Have you ever stepped down from a position? If so, why? and how can you reassure the students of the university that you can handle this position.
6. What is your schedule like for the next school year? Will you be able to handle what the job entails?
7. What are your duties as president? How will you carry these duties out?
8. What are your main objectives that you wish to accomplish once in office?
9. What are your plans once you graduate? Do you plan on having a career in Law? or Government? …If not, why are you running?
10. What is you agenda? Platform?
1. What do you feel is the biggest strengths and weaknesses of SGA? Give two examples of each.
2. Do feel the organization is fully equipped and capable of meeting the needs of the students on campus? Explain why.
3. If elected, what changes to SGA would you make? Would you consider having the constitution and bylaws changed to require that the executive branch be elected from within the SGA? Do you feel that experience in the organization prior to taking on executive positions. If you do not what do you think SGA can do to help students in these positions transition more smoothly and with better experience.
Our current President, when faced with a financial crisis, rather than taking action commensurate with his position as the leader of the student body, has elected to run to Austin to whine to lawmakers about the plight of publicly-supported college students. If you were confronted with the same situation, what – if anything – would you do differently?
I would like to see housing on campus from Cullen oaks bayou oaks Calhoun lofts moody towers quads to be lowered and more affordable will that be possible anytime soon??
I am very concerned about proposed legislation to allow concealed handguns on campus. What can the SGA do to keep this from passing? If it does become law, what can the SGA do to maintain the safety of the students?
I am a bisexual student on campus and would like my sexual orientation to be respected on campus. If elected, what do you plan to do for the GLBT community on campus, including faculty and staff?
Being a Greek member, I would like to ask the following:-
"How are you willing to improve the Greek facilities and how are you planning to increase Greek unity and pride together with the ongoing UH school pride awareness programs?"
UH is increasingly growing as well as it's students numbers and quality and like any other big tier 1 university it also needs a strong Greek system. It is known that in most big schools Greek students are synonymic of academic excellence, school pride and involvement , while at UH it due to lack of support and opportunities we are currently sadly lagging behind.
As far as I know, the administration still intends to revamp the UC despite budget woes and threats of tuition hikes (the latter, despite the fact that UH already is considered to have one of the worst returns on investment in the country). Students have been paying increased tuition for a few semesters now in anticipation of this construction despite that ground has still not been broken. Do you think it is wise, under these circumstances, to go forward with the UC plan beyond basic safety upgrades? What other cuts do you propose should be made to prevent tuition increases?
1. Describe a time when you took personal accountability for a conflict and initiated contact with the individual(s) involved to explain your actions.
2. Everyone has made some poor decisions or has done something that just did not turn out right. Describe a time this has this happened to you, and what you learned from the experience.
3. Tell us about a specific time when you had to handle a tough problem which challenged fairness or ethnical issues.
4. Have you ever had to introduce a policy change? How did you do it?
5. What have you done to further your knowledge/understanding about diversity? How have you demonstrated your learning?
All i have noticed in my 4 years here is a major lack of tradition from the new uniforms to not even having a mascot that is from texas. The two beautiful cougars we have for homecoming are actually from arkansas. Is there any chance we ever get back to having a cougar on campus and will we ever be able to join TCU in the big east? go coogs!
Have you previously been a member of SGA or attended any regular meetings?
There has been an ongoing discussion of the budget cuts that will take place in the education budget, while they are only cutting 13 -14% out of UT Austin and A&M the legislators are planning to cut 20% if not more from our budget. What are your ideas to equalize these budget cuts and where do you think we can save money? Do you have a plan in what expenses to cut in our campus? How are you planning to continue the university's goal of Tier 1 status with all these budget cuts?
Do you feel that we are a strong impact on the political arena? More specifically are we a powerful voice that is heard by our law makers? It would seem to me given the recent decisions of our local law makers that we are not. How do you propose to raise awareness of our political power as voters? Do you think that there should be a campus wide initiative to involve every student in voting so that we can gain more leverage with the state legislature? Do you think the answer isn't just to write and sign petitions but threaten to vote them all out next term if they don't change their tunes? How as a political figure do you view this situation?=
I've been here 3 years and the parking has become worse each year. When will SGA address this issue? I have yet to hear of it in any debate or metioned in any e-mail from current or former SGA presidents. There is a finite number of parking places and yet each year it becomes harder to find a parking place unless you arrive before 10am. What is the policy of the parking administration on the issuance of parking decals? Has anyone from this department actually counted the number of parking spaces? If so, why are they issuing more decals than spaces?