Monday, March 24, 1997

USG's nine candidates speak on tolerance

Editor's Note: This is the first story in an eight-part series on how the Undergraduate Student Government presidential and vice presidential candidates would deal with specific issues. This story focuses on tolerance.

By DAVID EDELSON
and KERRYLEE NADEAU
Collegian Staff Writers

Tolerance at the University has caught national attention in recent months.

The Undergraduate Student Government has not been immune to the issue, and neither are the nine tickets vying for victory on April 2 in the USG elections.

BOWSER and WILDERS

The ticket of Wesley Bowser and Mark Wilders would like to see tolerance promoted through a one-credit freshman seminar. Bowser said the seminar would focus on positive educational goals because it is important to create an atmosphere on campus where everyone will feel accepted.

"You have to really promote education and understanding among people as early as you can," Bowser said.

COVENER and NIGHTINGALE

Jason Covener and Jeremy Nightingale said USG should work with multicultural affairs and other diversity groups to promote tolerance at the University.

"USG's job should be to work with all the organizations to promote tolerance," Covener said.

There are times when USG should take a back seat in diversity organizations, while allowing them to continue to promote their views, he said.

DESMOND and POLK

Jaime Desmond and John Polk do not like the word tolerance -- they prefer the term respect.

"We all need to look to respect the entire student body," Desmond said. "And respect the fact that we're all going to be different and respect each other's views."

FAKE and BARRON

USG needs to take a proactive role when addressing tolerance, Thane Fake and Blythe Barron said.

"Tolerance is always an issue," Fake said. "We have to take a more proactive role -- reaching out to everybody."

Student leaders need to set an example, Fake said. If he were USG president, he said, he would attend every meeting and event of every different campus and community organization.

"You can't solve problems by talking to the same group of people all the time," Fake said.

LANDSBERG and BARBE

It is upsetting that we still need to have tolerance as an issue, Michael Landsberg and Brent Barbe said. People should be celebrating the similarities all people have in common and not focus on opinions that cause people to fight, Landsberg said.

"You have to avoid intolerance," he said. "We don't want to promote differences among people we want to promote what they have in common."

LOCCARINI and PIRROTTA

Tolerance means not inflicting harm on another person, Darin Loccarini and Chris Pirrotta said.

"There's really no justification for doing anyone any harm that hasn't hurt anyone else," Loccarini said. "That's tolerance."

Loccarini and Pirotta said they are molding their platform stance on tolerance after Students Reinforcing Adherence In General Heterosexual Tradition's ideology of acceptance versus tolerance.

"Our platform will address tolerance the same way we have through STRAIGHT," he said. "That is to differentiate between tolerance and acceptance and pushing the issue that you don't have to accept any behavior or political view."

LUBKEMANN and KRAMER

Open forums twice a semester will help bridge the gaps within the campus community, David Lubkemann and Eryn Kramer said.

"People are not tolerant if they are ignorant of each other," Lubkemann said.

He said people are entitled to their own views and opinions, but not at the expense of others.

For Lubkemann and Kramer, tolerance not only concerns race relations, ethnicity and sexuality, but also the differences between Greek and non-Greek students.

RUMMEL and CIESLA

Blaine Rummel and Kendra Ciesla plan to address tolerance by creating what they call a diversity council.

"I don't like the word tolerance," Rummel said. "I'd rather deal with acceptance."

The council Rummel and Ciesla plan to implement would be based off campus and consist of students, borough leaders and business owners.

"It would do for students off campus what multicultural affairs does for students on campus," Rummel said.

SAUR and ROBBINS

Hank Saur and Christina Robbins said they would like to see the word tolerance changed to respect. To promote respect, Saur said his administration would have executive liaisons that would attend the meetings of student groups so that USG would be able to work with a diverse student community.

"I know musical and cultural events bring a lot of people together that normally wouldn't hang out together," Saur said. "It is a top priority of ours to bring students together."