Debate focuses on student organization visibility, gender-neutral housing

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this article incorrectly characterized Winston Howes’s position on gender-neutral housing. Howes is not in favor of the housing option. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

For the third straight night, the four UNC student body president candidates faced off in a debate.

And for the second straight night Andrew Powell received endorsements.

The Wednesday debate was hosted by the Residence Hall Association, Campus Y and Black Student Movement, and all four candidates — juniors Powell, Emilio Vicente, Winston Howes, and Nikita Shamdasani — attended.

Powell received the endorsement from the RHA, said president Kendall Nicosia-Rusin. He also received an endorsement from the College Republicans this week.

Members from each of the sponsoring organizations asked questions centering around topics that focused on increasing the visibility of student organizations to freshmen and gender-neutral housing.

Throughout the debate, Howes mentioned his idea for a smartphone application which would create a personalized page for each student containing information about organizations and service opportunities they might be interested in.

He said his idea of hosting monthly Dinner for 8 events would create stronger bonds between students and administrators.

Similarly, Powell said he wants to create a common application containing the largest student organizations at UNC which freshmen could use to sign up in the beginning of the semester.
They also discussed ways to reach out to the UNC Board of Governors on unpopular stances, such as the board’s decision to not allow gender-neutral housing at UNC.

Vicente said he would be willing to take a strong stand against the Board of Governors to hold them accountable.

“My job as student body president is to represent students, not administrators,” he said.

Vicente said he thought Student Body President Christy Lambden had been late in supporting gender-neutral housing amidst backlash from the Board of Governors.

Shamdasani said it is important to mobilize students by having them reach out to individual members of the board who are at odds with the student body.

“At a certain level, there are administrators and trustees voting on these policies and no matter how much we want to do we don’t have a vote.” she said.

All candidates with the exception of Howes said they support gender-neutral housing, and Powell said students should continue to bring their concerns to the BOG.

He said one short term solution he wants to explore is establishing a partnership with the town in order to secure off campus housing similar to Granville Towers, which would be gender-neutral.

“We need to find a creative way to make this work,” Powell said.

“We don’t have time to wait to provide safety to students.”

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