Utah State University’s
Aggie Radio hosted student government debates this week — a first in history
for the campus radio station.
Several candidates for Utah
State University Student Association positions compared and contrasted their
plans live on Wednesday and Thursday.
“We wanted to be involved
with the elections more and we thought the debates would be a good outlet for
the candidates to say what they wanted to say,” said Becky Eisenhower, the
Aggie Radio event coordinator.
All of the candidates were offered
the opportunity to participate, but four of the 28 candidates ultimately chose
to take part.
“I feel that it is important
for students to hear and understand the goals, thoughts and character of
candidates running for president,” said Joshua LeFerve, a candidate in the
presidential race. “Debates provide an environment to compare the ideas, plans
and objectives between candidates.”
LeFerve debated fellow
presidential candidate and current USU/SA president Doug Fiefia Thursday at 4
p.m.
“This opportunity allowed me
to explain my ideas beyond the word limits set by the USU Statesman and USU/SA
elections committee,” LeFerve said. “It also shows the student body my position
and how I plan to serve them.”
The other two candidates
that choose to participate were Matt Ditto and Spencer Steadman, who are
running for the office of executive vice president. They debated Wednesday at
10 a.m.
“The debate went really
well. Matt and I both represented our platforms and we were respectful of each
other,” Steadman said. “I genuinely feel like anybody that listened has a
better idea of who they should vote for, which was the whole purpose of the
debate.”
While the majority of the
candidates did not participate, Aggie Radio plans to continue with the debates
next year.
“I think the candidates were
really busy and since we've never done them before, they didn't know quite what
to expect so they opted out of doing the debates,” Eisenhower said.
Aggie Radio plans to
advertise the event better to listeners and candidates in future years and will
give the candidates more advanced notice of the debates to get participation
levels to increase.
Tess Griffeth, Bailee Woolstenhulme, Mark Hanni,
Eliza Welsh and Emi Tano contributed to this report.
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