The hot button question that students seem to be asking my running mate Meredith Marx and me is "What makes you different from the other candidates?" This year's lack of a "big" issue like last year's Davies Center expansion means the candidates have done a lot of agreeing with each other. However, there are some key differences that set us apart, the most obvious being experience.

Candidates Bourgeois and Nelson are quick to point out their excellent communication skills. However, without the experience and the memory of ideas already started or tried by Senate, communication becomes ineffective. In other words, a communicator is only as effective as their knowledge of the subject. There are over 200 organizations on this campus and I cannot think of a single one that would feel comfortable allowing people, never even having been a member of their organization, to come into a leadership role the way candidates Bourgeois and Nelson are attempting to accomplish.

Candidates Olson and Snyder have more experience than the average candidate. For instance, they are quick to point out that they have experience in all three types of student fees. Meredith and I attended the required Differential Tuition hearings as Finance Commission Director and oversaw the creation of the $2.5 million dollar Segregated Fees budget. Meredith was one of the few senators that attended all of the required Segregated Fees budget hearings and deliberations.

However, our university does not live in a vacuum. There are issues beyond this campus in the surrounding neighborhoods that are just as important and need to be addressed. This area is where Meredith and I excel. My running mate has been on the Intergovernmental Affairs Commission for a full year and worked diligently to improve community relations. She worked hard behind the scenes on "Meet Your Neighbor Day" to get donations of pies from local grocery stores and apples from a local orchard. Then on "Meet Your Neighbor Day," both of us went into the community with other members of Intergovernmental Affairs and passed them out to houses in both the Third Ward and Historic Randall Park Neighborhoods. The event was a smashing success, and for all her hard work Meredith won the senator of the week award.

As for myself, I have served as the Student Senate Third Ward Liaison for the last five months trying to keep the lines of communication open and smooth over tension between the two groups. As a result, I have a working relationship with Gary Sherwood, the president of the Third Ward Neighborhood Association, a rapport with Toby Biegel, the District 3 City Council Alderman, and Terry Stanley, an At-large City Council Alderwoman that lives in the Third Ward. Neither of the other candidates can boast such an involvement in the area around campus. Two-thirds of the students that attend this University live in the surrounding communities, and those communities can have great effects on student life through parking bans and conditional-use permits for social fraternities and sororities.

In closing, Meredith and I would like to encourage you to vote March 1st through 4th and thank you for your vote. Remember you have the power to decide our leadership on this campus and in the surrounding community, so consider the candidates that have taken action and gotten results.