Student Government presidential candidate Helen Frink and running mate Wesley Davis want to stand up for their constitutes, so first, they’re having them sit.
The Hot Seat, part of their pre-campaign called Listen., uses a colorful armchair to draw people into the candidates’ campus chats. The conversations are designed to find out what concerns students have going into the election.
“We have this chair. It’s very ridiculous. It’s this awful orange and we covered it in crazy fabric from Walmart,” Frink said.
Once in the chair, the students tell Frink and Davis their concerns about SG, campus life and any other issues they may have.
Frink said she’s heard many opinions and ideas through the project that she would not have come up with otherwise.
“The whole premise is the Hot Seat, and when you’re in the Hot Seat, you talk, and we listen,” Frink said. “So we invite people to just sit down in the chair and tell us about their thoughts on Student Government or anything that they want on campus.”
The Listen. pre-campaign first contacted all student organizations to find out what they wanted out of SG.
Though active campaigning for SG elections does not start until March 2, Frink wanted to find out what issues mattered to their constituents ahead of time.
Frink said she learned a lot from the different clubs, but in the end, she knew there were still students who had not been reached.
“We were like ‘OK, what about those students organizations that we didn’t get to or those that are not involved on campus?’” Frink said. “‘How do we reach those people? Because obviously they have a very important opinion, too.’”
What she found was a desire for those students to get connected.
“Yesterday, four people in a row talked about that they wanted more fun things to do on campus to help them meet people,” Frink said. “[The students said] ‘there’s movies and stuff but that way you don’t get to meet new people you just keep hanging out with the same friends that you have.’”
The International Student Association told Frink they wanted a way to connect with people outside their club.
As an LSU Ambassador and a sorority member, Frink said she sometimes forgets not everyone is as plugged into campus as she is.
She said some students wanted to turn the former billiards hall in the Student Union in to a hangout space instead of a UREC satellite, and she was going to incorporate those suggestions into her initiatives.
Frink said the Hot Seat has helped her meet candidates who could run on her ticket, but not everyone has a positive view of SG.
“It’s hard because a lot of people are like, ‘No I don’t want to talk about Student Government,’” Frink said. “But when we get those few people that do want to talk about it and have really awesome thoughts and opinions that I never would have heard before, it’s totally worth it.”
The Hot Seat will make its final appearance tomorrow in the Quad, Frink said.