The Student Government Association at the University of Tennessee held a debate on April 7 ahead of elections next week.

Since the Evolve campaign is the only party currently running for SGA, the debate acted as more of a panel with the election commissioner Ben Pham moderating the discussion. It featured student body presidential candidate Jordan Brown, vice presidential candidate Mark Hancock, student services candidate Abigail Lawrence and treasurer candidate Marshall Summar.

Before beginning, Pham introduced the debate and allowed the candidates to introduce themselves. He mentioned the fact that only one party was running, which is why the debate was structured more as a panel.

“As you may note, we currently only have one campaign running in this cycle, with the Evolve campaign,” Pham said. “With that, we changed up the format of the debate quite dramatically to accommodate for this.”

The panel lasted from 6-7:20 p.m. Pham asked a series of questions directed at either specific candidates or to all four.

Pham’s first question was on the top priorities of each candidate when they enter into office. Lawrence’s top priority for student services is to rebuild connections with students and engage students through events and organizations on campus. Summar wants to reallocate the budget to reinvigorate student organizations to keep them operating. Hancock wants to reach out to freshmen and get them involved in the First-Year Leadership Council.

On this question, Brown said that her main priority is to reach out to students to form better connections, keep student organizations from disbanding due to lack of funding and ensure spaces for everyone on campus.

“That’s something that I’m really passionate about because I really just want to make this campus stronger and make sure that of course all students feel welcome on this campus, but specifically the multicultural students who need these places on campus,” Brown said.

On the topic of the three pillars of Evolve, each candidate was asked what embrace, engage and energize means to them. Everyone gave distinct answers, including embracing everyone on campus and ensuring that there are more gender neutral and minority spaces on campus, increasing the amount of fun student events to reenergize the student body to bring it back to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic time and rebuild those connections to students.

On this question, Summar talked about being new to SGA and how he believes these pillars are representative of what SGA should be for all students.

“It’s important to pour into the energy of the community so that people know what’s going on and people are going to be willing to get involved with SGA, and once you create that energy you can begin to embrace everybody because SGA is for everyone,” Summar said.

There were questions based on experience, which the candidates answered in different ways. For example, Lawrence talked about the upcoming Earth Week that she helped to organize, whereas Summar talked about getting involved with clubs through the Haslam College of Business.

Later on, Lawrence answered a question about committees and if there should be any removed or created. She discussed an event called Milkshake Mondays where students were given a milkshake and then asked to fill out a survey. She said she would like to see more events and committees like this.

“It made me realize how it’s really the little things on campus, like a milkshake on a Monday when you’re exhausted and you’ve got two exams coming up, that really change people’s perspectives on going to UT, it helps people feel like they belong at UT,” Lawrence said. “So that being said, I think something that we can do as the Student Services Branch is really turn our focus to those feel-good events, those community creating events, that we haven’t been able to have recently.”

On the topic of growing student enrollment, each candidate talked about what campus should do about this increase along with aspects they like. Lawrence talked about increasing mental health resources for new students who might feel isolated.

Summar echoed that sentiment along with focusing on all types of first-year students including transfer students. Jordan focused on food insecurity and increasing funding for services to combat that, along with reforms to lower prices and offer more dietary options in the POD Markets.

Hancock talked about housing as a major issue, and said he supports the idea of the pedestrian bridge that’s been proposed across the Tennessee River.

“I think looking into possible expansion on this is a great idea because campus is getting really big really fast, and I feel like if we don’t come up with a solution, the problem is going to explode,” Hancock said. “So I feel like looking into more ways to fix housing would be a good idea.”

Pham then asked Brown a question on racism and racially-charged events that might occur on campus and what she would do as student body president to combat this. She talked about getting student input on what occurs as an important aspect to her decision making process.

“I think the first step is getting student input on what they think should happen in these situations because administration – of course they try – but in the sense that they aren’t directly impacted by these situations compared to us living in this environment every single day,” Brown said. “So in order to make sure that the right actions and steps are taken, we need to make sure that we’re having these conversations with students, and showing them that we care about what you have to say and your feelings are completely valid whatever they may be.”

The group was then asked a question on continuing to ensure that the LGBTQ community on campus continues to be safe and included. They talked about various aspects like working with the Pride Center to hold events, focusing on LGBTQ student organizations and helping them grow, bringing more of the community into SGA to bring legislation changes and making sure that more course offerings are available. Lawrence also added that she wants to increase safe space training within student services for directors and campus tour guides.

Brown was asked a question on the state legislature and how it affects curriculum on campus. She answered by stating that campus and SGA should have spaces where students can voice their concerns and have discussions about the state legislature.

The candidates concluded the panel by discussing the barrier to entry for certain aspects of SGA, like campaigning, and how they want to continue to lower it for more students to get involved. They also want to fill in the senate completely and get student senators to connect with each other more.

Pham thanked everyone for coming and speaking. He mentioned that the elections for SGA will take place next week from Monday through Wednesday, April 11 to 13. Students can cast their ballot at votesga.utk.edu.