“The biggest issue in this campaign is improving the quality of student life,” said Viqar Hussain, a 20-year-old junior biomedical technologies major and the Advocates’ presidential candidate. “That includes academics, concerts, library hours… trying to improve the student experience in general.”

Leslie Meister, a 20-year-old junior psychology major and the Advocates’ vice presidential candidate, emphasized the importance of academic issues as part of her party’s platform. “Obviously, academics come first. We’re here to get an education.”

Meister continued, “Right now, there is a language test for TAs, but it’s optional. A lot of the TAs can speak the language but they don’t communicate very well. We want to make the test mandatory.” Other plans relating to academics include a vaguely defined idea to promote better academic advisement for students with minors or double majors, as well as a push for better library hours on South Campus.

Andrew DeShong, a 19-year-old sophomore business finance major, is the treasurer candidate for the UB Advocates. “A few years ago, there was a promise to raise the clubs’ budgets by 40 percent,” DeShong said. “30 percent of the raises are done. I want to make sure we do the last ten percent.” He also discussed his proposal for a Conference Committee. “Going to a conference can use most of a club’s budget for a year. We want to have a committee which would review applications for money on top of the basic budget to finance important trips.”

In terms of entertainment, the Advocates want to change the way that acts are selected for the Fests. “We’d set up polls on the SA website and let students vote for the acts they want,” Meister said. Hussain added, “If that doesn’t work, we’ll go ‘dorm-storming’ and get student opinions that way.”

“We want to have smaller concerts in addition to the Fests,” Meister said. Also planned is a series of regularly scheduled cultural events, some of which would be coordinated with various SA clubs.

As for South Campus, Hussain wants to establish a satellite SA office in Clark Hall as well as provide CPR classes and fight to keep the athletic trainers, who are about to lose their funding, in the building.“We also want to do concerts on Rotary Field and hold a carnival,” he said. “We’ve already got permission from Athletics for that.”

“There are 15,000 [undergraduate] students at UB not involved with clubs. SA isn’t all about clubs, though,” Hussain said. “We need to do more than just clubs and the two Fests, and that’s what we plan to do.”