In the past, Ohio University student activism groups have ran on tickets and have served in Student Senate.
This year's senate election will be between two tickets, UNITE and Impact, both of which have executive candidates who are all part of this year’s body.
“It seems to be the general consensus among most of the activists on campus to work outside of the Student Senate system for now,” Hannah Koerner, a member of F--kRapeCulture, said.
Koerner, a junior studying English, said activists on campus lost motivation to join senate after BARE, an activist-heavy ticket, lost last year.
“I think when Restart was in power, they found themselves muddled down in a lot of day-to-day, bureaucratic, kind of red-tape tasks that probably took away from their ability to do the activist work that they found most important,” she said.
Restart was the Student Senate ticket that former president Megan Marzec and others ran on before she was elected as president for the 2014-15 academic year. This year, senate has been led by members of the SOS ticket, which won nearly all of the seats in last year's election, according to a previous Post report.
Daniel Kington, an activist and member of OU Student Union, said the group discussed running a ticket this year but decided against it.
“It’s a huge drain on our resources to run for Student Senate, and it basically has to be the only thing we focus on,” Kington, a sophomore studying English and a former Post columnist, said. "So it just didn’t make sense to devote our time to it this year."
Kington said activists in senate last year found that the body distracted from Student Union's activist focus. He also said Student Union wants to be able to expand its organization, which can't be done in Student Senate without elections or appointments.
Kington said the two tickets that currently are running are basically the same.
“I asked one person running what the difference between the two tickets, and he said it was mostly just the people in them,” Kington said. “For the people running right now, I feel like senate is less of a tool to accomplish social change on campus and more of a tool to build your resume or get experience and network.”
Hannah Clouser, UNITE’s presidential candidate and current senate treasurer, said last year’s election was different because people were running to fix the “broken” senate. She said this year's candidates are furthering initiatives and adding new ones. She credits the current “smooth running” senate as the reason for the number of internal candidates.
Clouser added that activism is important, but senate is more about advocating for students.
"I don’t (think) activism is necessarily a bad thing, but I just think ... when you are in the role of the senate, people are looking at you — sometimes with a more critical eye — so you just have to be careful about how you are representing yourself because you are also representing the student body," Clouser said.
This year's Student Senate elections will take place next Tuesday and Wednesday.
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