Candidates running in student government elections hope to take advantage of available campus technology to benefit students by creating online databases and making financial records visible to the public.
The GO Party proposes to create a centralized scholarship database that would assist students in financing their education. The database would include any departmental, institutional or organizational scholarship, but would eventually be expanded to include private scholarships that U students have received in the past.
The Revolution Party wants to create an online financial accounting system to post spending for the Associated Students of the University of Utah and student groups on the Internet.
The Synergy Party proposes to do an external audit of all ASUU finances, which it will also publish on the Internet.
With the scholarship database, the GO Party hopes to make the technology user-friendly by allowing students to search for scholarships based on their individual qualifications. The software would work much like a search engine, allowing students to type in their qualifications. The database would then provide all scholarships for which they might be eligible.
The GO Party hopes to link the database to the Campus Information System as well as the financial aid and scholarship Web site. This would allow convenient access for students who are also applying for federal financial aid, said Pace Johnson, the party’s presidential candidate.
The party also wants to improve the ASUU Web site to allow students groups to engage in dialogue with groups that have similar interests.
The party would update and categorize all student groups to allow organizations to find others that share similar interests and goals. For example, groups would be categorized under such titles as religion, athletics or service groups. They would then be able to coordinate activities and exchange information with groups that share their same objectives.
“The whole point of these initiatives would be to help reach every student,” Johnson said. “We need to reach everyone on campus, not just those that come into the Union. The Internet and the use of technology provides a way for us to do that.”
The Revolution Party also proposes to redesign the ASUU Web page to highlight student groups and in turn, foster a feeling of unity among the student body.
It hopes to make the student group section a more visible part of the Web site to improve communication among groups on campus so they can work together toward their common goals.
The party also wants to create a financial accounting system to be posted on the Internet. The spreadsheet-based system would be updated throughout the year and provide students with a way to track financial expenditures.
The spreadsheet would allow students to see how much money was allocated to each group and where they have spent money so far during the year. The goal for the project would be to allow students to better understand where their money is going, how it is being spent and also make ASUU members more accountable for their expenditures, said Tayler Clough, the party’s presidential candidate.
“If ASUU members know that students have access to their financial activities, they will be much better at using it to directly benefit students,” said Rachel Rizzo, the party’s vice presidential candidate. “Accountability leads to responsibility when dealing with money matters.”
The Synergy Party would also use the Internet to help ASUU be more accountable to the students they represent.
The group would work with the David Eccles School of Business to perform an external audit on ASUU and publish the results online so every student would have access to it.
The Synergy Party would publish the budget for each of the boards under ASUU direction, and make an accounting of how the boards are using the allocated money. The hope is that transparency in the monetary process will lead to better accountability, said Liz Oldroyd, the party’s candidate for senior class president.
“We need to understand where our money is going as students, and how it is benefitting us,” Oldroyd said. “Only then can we improve the process and make it more efficient.”