The executive candidates on the Bridge Ohio ticket for Ohio University Student Senate were the best candidates in the room for the executive debate Monday night.
They were also the only candidates.
Bridge Ohio is the only ticket that applied to be on the ballot for this year’s senate election, making for a one-sided debate in Walter Hall.
Matthew Thomas, senate’s executive justice and the moderator of the debate, said having five debates is required according to senate's rules and procedures, regardless of the number of tickets running.
Senate’s Judicial Panel is not sure why only one ticket applied to be on the ballot, Thomas said, although, previously, Thomas heard rumors of other possible tickets.
“Rumors are always just rumors,” he said. “(Having one ticket is) very new to us. I don’t think it’s happened in recent history.”
Maddie Sloat, a junior studying political communication in the Honors Tutorial College, is running for president. She started serving on senate this academic year as an East Green senator.
As a freshman, Sloat started the Period Project, a student organization that provides menstrual products to students and educates students about women’s public health issues. Sloat’s work with senate led to the “Take a Tampon, Leave a Tampon” project, in which restrooms on campus are stocked with tampons for students who are menstruating.
“(The ticket is) genuinely trying to bridge the gap between the student body and our administrators and also increase collaboration between student organizations,” Sloat said.
The vice presidential candidate is Hannah Burke, a junior studying political science and senate’s Women’s Affairs commissioner.
“Helping to create change on this campus was one of the most empowering things I’ve been a part of,” Burke, who serves on The Post Publishing Board, said.
If Burke was elected vice president, she said she would work to improve campus safety, community engagement and academic success. She also said she would work to “humanize” the roles of senate executives so students see them as approachable peers.
Lydia Ramlo, a junior studying civil engineering and environmental studies, is the candidate for treasurer. Ramlo currently serves as the Environmental Affairs commissioner.
She said there is the potential in Bridge’s platform to reduce waste on campus and push for the university’s divestment from fossil fuels.
Executive members of Student Senate receive scholarships from the university. The scholarship accounts for the president’s entire instructional fee and half of the vice president’s and treasurer’s instructional fees.
Senate elections take place April 3, and even through Bridge is running unopposed, they still encourage students to vote.
“We want students to feel like they’re investing in their representatives and actually feel like those representatives are representing them,” Sloat said.
