Today, all Marquette University full-time undergraduate students will be eligible to vote for Marquette University Student Government president and executive vice president, as well as academic senators.
There are two tickets running for president and executive vice president. Cameron Heiser, a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, is running for MUSG president. He’s running with Makayla Harrow, a sophomore in the College of Business Administration.
Heiser serves as current MUSG executive vice president and Harrow serves as MUSG’s chief of staff.
They will be up against Bridgeman Flowers, a sophomore in the College of Education, and Samari Price, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Flowers and Price also have experience working within MUSG and other student leadership. Flowers serves as the vice president of outreach of MUSG. Price serves as the president of the NAACP at Marquette and is on programming board of MUSG.
Both tickets had a change to explain their campaigns in the MUSG debate on Sunday.
“We believe that Marquette students always strive for greatness, but it should not be at the expense of their mental and physical health, as well as their personal, intellectual, and social well-being. Cam and I, if elected, would like to focus on mental health programming and creating ways to enhance the student experience and bolster student success,” Harrow said in the MUSG debate.
Additionally Heiser and Harrow want to broaden the reach of the bias incident reporting form, raise student minimum wage, improve the student organization funding process, create a multicultural organization line, promote the student success initiative, de-stigmatize some of the areas around campus, remove the gendered visitation policy and advocate for reduced or free commuter student parking.
The Flowers/Price ticket has three main goals: amplify student voices, address the campus mental health and create more pro-active initiatives.
“We want to create an environment where students come in their authentic clothing. Often students are told you have to be some type of way or act a certain type of way in order to get support and get your voice put across. We want to show that we can create an open space where students can come authentically,” Flowers said in the MUSG debate.
They also want to work to combat microaggressions on campus, better prepare students for service learning and combat food insecurity among students.
“As a Black woman I came into this campus as a freshman and automatically I was already targeted. I was targeted because I grew up in 53206 zip code, because I was first generation, I was low income, I was an educational opportunity student and a lot of that has put stigma on Black women but also marginalized communities on campus,” Price said in the MUSG debate.
Both tickets have improving student mental health as one of their main campaign goals. Heiser and Harrow want to have student voices involved in the planning of the new wellness center and bring back Mental Health Days.
“We know that the weekend sometimes isn’t enough time to de-stress and get ready for the next week and a lot of times both of those days are spent doing homework,” Heiser said in the MUSG debate.
Flowers and Price want to implement MUSG “mindful Mondays” where wellness coaches are available to talk with students. They also want to create student support groups, improve online mental health resources and support mental health hotlines. In addition, they want to make more mental health services centralized at the Alumni Memorial Union.
“We think there’s a mental health crisis on our campus. Student mental health is not being put first…I think we need to bring more intention that you can have an excused absence for a mental health crisis,” Flowers said in the MUSG debate.
The Heiser/Harrow ticket want to create a campus community that flourishes at Marquette.
“We, if elected, realize the purpose of MUSG is to be the voice of the entire student body and that means the voice of every single student and every student experience here at Marquette and in every single student community,” Heiser said in the MUSG debate.
The Flowers/Price ticket want to ensure that every student is comfortable on campus and that their voice is heard.
“We want students to feel included and amplified here and that their voices matter, they deserve to be here and that this is a space for them,” Price said in the MUSG debate.
All eligible voting students will receive an email in their Marquette email inbox with a link to vote. Voting will be open from 12 a.m. to 10 p.m. Senior students will also be voting for a commencement speaker.
Election results will be announced in a press conference March 30 at noon, with the location to be determined.
This story was written by Megan Woolard. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @MeganWoolard4
