By Kayla Walker

Candidate: Shaun SlightClass: Junior Major: HistoryMinor: Biology and GermanHometown: Middlebury, CTResident————————-Candidate: Ian DalyClass: FreshmanMajor: Political ScienceMinor: Music and DramaHometown: Westchester, NYResident————————-Chronicle: What made you decide to run?

Ian Daly: It was kind of, of the moment, and also out of respect for Pete [DiSilvio, current SGA president]. It was something I’d been looking forward to do a long time and I took the chance to do it.

Shaun Slight: Personally, I’ve been involved in SGA for a few years now, and this past year I was a justice so my hands were tied and I couldn’t take an proactive role in student relations and I wanted to do that.

Chronicle: What have you contributed to SGA since you have been a member?

Daly: I’ve mostly participated in situations that have needed help. Things like events, club meetings and fairs. I’ve also participated with the judicial panel over issues. I’ve basically been more of an extra member that’s just helped out when they’ve needed assistance.

Slight: This would be my third branch of [student] government. When I was a senator, I was also member of the rules committee, helping clubs get passed; letting them know what they’ve needed to do. I’ve organized meetings and helped senators and students at large as well as writing legislation for student government. And with the judicial panel, ad campaigns to let students know that judicial panel is out there and what they’re about, listening to students’ problems

Chronicle: What is your platform?

Daly: Promoting more spirit and cooperation among students, also helping cooperation with clubs and organizations, bringing in more clubs and organizations. Also, discounts for students off campus. A public relations committee for student government, as well.

Slight: There are a few goals we have set already. We’d like to make senate meetings run more smoothly. Whether we win or not, a new voting system; biology students have to buy these clickers at the beginning of the year, you can vote with it, you can do anything. It’s a lot easier than counting and is much more accurate. We want there to be a club tab that lists events on the Hofstra Portal where each club could post what they’re doing, meeting times and events for each club. So, instead of having a lot of flyers floating around, which is all good, you can check your e-mail and see what’s going on on campus, it will be a lot more effective and everyone will see it, whether you’re a resident or commuter. We’re also working to get discounts for students, I’m really working on a discount at one of the gas stations. We want more referenda, not just at the second semester but the first as well. We definitely want a parliamentarian, this year there wasn’t one. There’s a lot of ambiguity in senate and basically, a parliamentarian doesn’t get a vote and they basically make sure things go as they should. We really want student support for more blue lights on campus and improve the security. We also will abdicate more funding for clubs. Basically, if each person is charged $20 more to fund clubs, that would provide more than $150,000 for clubs. If students feel strongly enough against the idea, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I believe that if tuition goes up every year, students wouldn’t mind having to pay just $20 more to be able to more on campus, I would appreciate student feedback though if they were against the idea. Clubs need more money, we want to get students more involved.

Chronicle: If elected, how do you plan on achieving your platform?

Daly: Right now, we have a lot of ideas. We haven’t really thought much about what we would do. We’re going to work on that, definitely. We want to have a plan and hopefully during our campaign we’ll come up with more ideas and a plan to promote those ideas.

Slight: The ideas we have right now, I’ve ran them by the administration, Student Activities to see if they’re possible and legal, and they have been. We want to get to know more students and administration; I personally know a lot of the administration just from being here for a while. So, I do have the connections to make things happen.

Chronicle: What experiences do you have that will make you a good president/vice president?

Daly: My leadership skills, my prosecuting skills. I forgot to mention this in the debate, but I was a representative on SGA and secretary of a committee. I think that could help me promote my skills better on campus and conduct better meetings; making things more cooperative with less emotions involved.

Slight: I’ve been here for three years and I know the faculty and staff and I think my public speaking skills have improved. I work in admissions and have given tours on campus. I’ve definitely opened up more and gotten in a better leadership position. I’m currently a teacher’s assistant in the biology department and a member of two honors societies. I think I have the leadership and the connections for the job.

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Candidate: Kate LegnettiClass: SophomoreMajor: Political ScienceHometown: Bucks County, Pa.Resident————————-Candidate: Brent WeitzbergClass: FreshmanMajor: Political ScienceHometown: Queens, NYResident————————-Chronicle: What made you decide to run?

Kate Legnetti: We’ve been thinking about it for a while and didn’t run earlier out of respect for Pete [DiSilvio, current SGA president] but after the events that happened, we decided to throw our hats in.

Brent Weitzberg: This is our time to take up an opportunity that we want to be a part of.

Chronicle: What have you contributed to SGA since you have been a member?

Legnetti: I got involved in SGA the second semester of my freshman year, this is my third full semester. I’m on Spirit Committee with Brent; we do homecoming, football games and basketball games. I’m also on Rules Committee, we do everything from the formation of new clubs on campus to resolutions. We’re also the first line of defense when new referenda come through on the ballot when you vote for presidential tickets. This year I’m also ethics and conduct chair, which means I do everything with absences at meetings to reinstatements. First semester this year, I also headed Matt Bisanz’s impeachment. As ethics and conduct chair, I’m the chief prosecuting officer. I wasn’t at that time, but I was one of the senators, along with Lisa Giunta, who took up that initiative.

Weitzberg: I’m a senator, I got in [in] October so I’ve been in for a little while now. I’m a member of the Spirit Committee, I have worked with the committee to bring more pep to events at the school. We’ve worked on T-shirts with alliance with the Inter-Fraternity/Sorority Council and made pom-poms filled with candy at the football games. As far as senate goes, I am a senator of SGA and I’m at practically every meeting. That may not sound like a lot but it really is a big time commitment and is a main part of my life, which I love and I’m proud to be a part of it. I’m always stating my opinion and fighting for what I believe in.

Chronicle: What is your platform?

Lengetti: We want to maintain the lines of communication between SGA and the administration that was established this year. Pete really opened those lines up and we want to take advantage of that to the best of our ability. We have a calendar on the Hofstra Portal that not many students know about it, that lists all the events on campus. It’s really difficult to get to on the portal and we hope to get that maybe on the homepage; everything from plays to parties at Hofstra USA and club meetings. We also want to work with IFSC. We know they sometimes don’t get the best rep on campus, but they do a lot for the community, not just the Hofstra community but the surrounding community as well. We know they work a lot with each other but we think it would be a good idea if they maybe branched out a tiny bit and worked with Hofstra Hillel, College Democrats or even a publication like Pulse to further their reputation. We want to ensure that everyone involved with Greek life has a positive experience and the rest of campus has a positive opinion of them. We just want everyone on campus to have as positive experience as we do.

Weitzberg: We want to increase communication between students and SGA and getting the Hofstra community as happy and as involved as Kate and myself are. Basically, there are a lot of gaps that could be bridged and we hope to bridge them between clubs, … fraternities and sororities, … commuters and resident students. There are so many things that could be furthered as far as commuters and residents go. Commuters are great, and they should have as many opportunities as residents. I know that’s tough because commuters travel, but maybe we could work with clubs to change meeting times and utilize common hour more, because a lot of students are on campus at that time. As far as clubs themselves go, we want clubs that have a single thread in common to get together, the Hofstra Democrats and the Hofstra Republicans, for example. They have very different ideologies, but both deal with politics and changing the world.

Chronicle: If elected, how do you plan on achieving your platform?

Legnetti: The very first thing we’d have to do is get a very solid cabinet. At the very first meeting, what happens on May 8, we have a turnover meeting. The first half is the old, and the next half of the meeting goes to whoever wins and a cabinet is selected. We want to work on delegation, obviously we can’t do all the work ourselves. We also want to implement task forces, Pete’s done a couple in the past like the recycling one going on now. Earlier this year, he had one focusing on the Lackmann problem and we think they’re a great opportunity to get a small group of senators involved in a specific topic, to immerse themselves in a problem on campus and really put their heads together to try to fix it. We’ll have to establish a solid relationship with administrators personally and to get senate behind us. I think we’ll need a united senate to really get anything done.

Weitzberg: We want to utilize everyone in senate and make sure they’re doing something to further the organization.

Chronicle: What experiences do you have that will make you a good president/vice president?

Weitzberg: I’ve been politically aware my whole life, but politically active basically since the start of high school, up until now. I worked for a United States congressman, Gary Ackerman, who represents the fifth district in New York, and I’ve been working for him for over two years. And he has shown me so much of the behind-the-scenes of what goes into national politics-and not even national politics-but on a local level, because you have people who he represents. And they say “All politics starts at home.,” and I think that term can be applied anywhere: on a national level, on a school level, on a city level, anywhere. Everything starts with the people you’re representing. If you don’t give them what they want, they’re not going to like you and you’re not doing your job. In addition to that, I also used to intern for Queens-Tribune publications – which is a newspaper. By being an editorial intern, I have over 20 published articles from that newspaper. Additionally to that, I have worked on a New York City mayoral campaign, Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign in 2005, when he ran. And I did some politics in high school, regarding the school – that’s outside sources.

Now, in Hofstra I live in the Netherlands. I am the president of the Netherland North Hall Council. Being president of the Netherlands North Hall Council, myself and my cabinet and everyone who is involved helps plan and run programs that can be beneficial to the roughly 1,200 freshman that live in the Netherlands. We work with the Netherlands South hall council as well. So, we do stuff with events to make people basically unite and have a better time the way they’re living. In addition to that, we also give money to certain houses – each house of the Netherlands does events as well. So if they are low on their budget and they need they can come work with us.

And past that, I am also involved in Hofstra Hillel, where I have ran and planned three events. I’m in the process of running and planning two right now. One of them is the Israeli Day Parade where we’re trying to get sponsorships for outside businesses to sponsor the young adults from Hillel and from the Hofstra community who are going to march in the Israeli Day Parade. And then the money that we get up from these outside businesses, and just people who want to donate to a good cause, we’re going to donate to two different organization in Israel. One organization is the equivalent of the American Red Cross. Another organization is this lovely 84-year-old woman who actually helps the underprivileged and gives wedding dresses to brides who can’t afford them. She does all this great charitable stuff and she needs money to help further her cause.

Legnetti: Last year I was a member of Hofstra Democrats. Currently I’m vice president of Circle K, which is a community service organization on campus. We do a bunch of different events. Last semester we did tie-dye for Darfur, which was probably our biggest event we ever held; it was over 70 students. We raised over $300 for the Save Darfur Coalition. I’m also an intern for the Center for Civic Engagement, which is an institute here on campus. We do everything from voter registration, which was huge in November, to trying to unite students through a variety of training programs and seminars. I also worked in the office of undergraduate admissions, I’m an ambassador, so I bring students around campus.

I’m involved in student government, that’s it.