Business junior Dillon Miskimins is campaigning against Arts & Sciences junior Adam Hare to become the next Creighton Students Union president. Here are some of the issues they hope to address.

Q: Why are you running for CSU president?

Miskimins:

When I came here as a freshman at summer preview, the CSU president always gives a speech to the incoming class, and after the president was done, I leaned over to my mom, and I said, ‘I’m going to run for that position someday.’ Really, I fell in love with Creighton and everything that it offers, and so I just have this passion to be involved and make sure that as Creighton moves forward, the student voice is always heard, and that as Creighton moves forward, it does so with the students in mind. I feel like I can definitely listen to the voice of the students, listen to their needs and their concerns and then express that to the administration and allow the students to move forward with the university.

Hare:

I want to do it because I see it as the best way I can help people on Creighton’s campus. I can sort of feel my given purpose is to help people and to use the skills that I was given, and as a natural leader, I want to use those leadership skills in the most effective way possible. For CSU president, I think that is a good way that I can use the many talents I have to benefit each individual student at Creighton.

Q: How will you deal with funding for student organizations?

Miskimins:

I’ve been the voice for the students already as the vice president for finance, and it’s a really good feeling to me, and I enjoy it — For the past two semesters, I’ve significantly increased the amount of funding allocations that I’ve given directly to student organizations. It’s really a bureaucratic process that the student organizations have to go through to receive funding, and so I really started to break those down and make it much easier for student organizations to receive funding, and I really would like to reduce some of the rollover that we have from year to year and see that money go directly back to the students. I would definitely like to make it a much easier process for student organizations to receive more money and to advertise that CSU has money for student orgs to utilize.

Hare:

I’ve been a CSU Finance Committee rep for both my years in CSU, so I’ve had a lot of interaction with student organizations. I think in the future we need to make students more aware of what CSU is funding because students are the shareholders in our organization. CSU is a students union – it’s not a student government by name, and when you think of a student union, it’s more like a corporation than anything. We have all the students who pay into the system, and we’ve got to make sure that every student is getting their money’s worth from it.

Q: What is CSU’s next step for the recycling program?

Miskimins:

I was more or less the liaison between the students and the administration to plan out all of the logistics for the sustainable recycling program that’s now in place. It’s not perfect by any means, and so education programs need to be implemented so that students know what to recycle, where they can recycle. It’s fantastic that the university has committed the resources to holding a sustainable recycling program on campus, but now we need to get the ball rolling, and the students need to hold up their end of the deal, and CSU needs to hold up their end of the deal as well. That goes with just sponsoring education programs for recycling, maybe some competitions with UNO or something so that it really just sparks interest on campus.

Hare:

I was integral and a driving force behind getting recycling on campus. And now you see the impact on that because we do have a sustainable Single Stream recycling program on campus currently, and over the next year hopefully they’re going to implement that campus-wide and not just in the residence halls like it is now. It’s also in the Wareham building and the Harper Center now, but it needs to be in all the academic buildings. That’s the next big step for CSU when it comes to recycling.

Q: What is a student concern that CSU needs to address?

Miskimins:

The first one is off-campus safety. Some specific ideas are a list of preferable landlords that students can contact that have held continual relationships with Creighton students Another idea is definitely getting involved with the neighborhood association so that Creighton students are part of the neighborhood around that area and so that the area can be safer for Creighton students and can be more appealing to Creighton students.

Hare:

Another issue I think is pretty big in the hearts of students right now is the off-campus security issue. This one is one that affects me personally. I live in the Pike house, so I know first hand the impact of off-campus security issues. I think that CSU is going to have to play an integral role in making sure that our students’ concerns are addressed in regards to off-campus security and safety.

Q: What are some changes you’d like to make if you’re elected president?

Miskimins:

Part of the strategic plan is ‘building the brand of CSU’ and reaching out to the students better, and I really think that’s crucial for CSU becoming the organization that I think it can. Students need to know what we’re here to do for them. It’s all about what can we do for you, the student, and how can we voice your concerns, but they have to know about us in order to do that.

Hare:

One of the biggest changes that need to happen within CSU is a movement towards more representative involvement on campus. Representatives need to be out amongst the constituents, amongst the rest of the student body and finding out what the student concerns are on a more regular basis. I think just increasing the visibility of representatives on campus would help that. Increasing the availability of avenues for students to communicate directly with representatives to get their concern heard by leaders that can in turn bring it to the CSU board representatives meeting and affect that change that the students want to see.