Jokesters Jay Ducote and Collin Ford may not be “serious” Student Government presidential and vice presidential candidates, but they take their candidacy seriously.
“We’re in the group that’s not into taking ourselves too seriously,” Ducote, who is running for SG president, said. “We’re going to try to make this fun, and we’re not going to be political and weasel our way through it.”
Laughs and jokes abound between Ducote, a fifth-year political science senior, and his vice presidential running mate Ford, a public administration graduate student.
The two candidates showcase their laid-back styles and easy going attitudes even during a time they said most other candidates would get serious — campaign time.
Monday afternoon the pair showed up for an interview with Ford’s dog, Highland, and all three were wearing orange T-shirts — none of which advertised Ducote and Ford’s campaign, though.
Even e-mails have a touch of Ducote and Ford’s humor. The two interchange their names as nicknames, signing “Collin” Ducote and “Jay” Ford.
The Ducote and Ford ticket is the only one among four SG presidential and vice presidential running mates that does not have a “push card” — the cards SG candidates often hand out in Free Speech Alley.
But, they contend their lack of a push card is not just laziness.
“We feel it is overkill to do it this soon, and students just get aggravated,” Ford said.
Ducote said they realize intense campaigning might be the way many candidates get votes, but they would like to run their campaign differently.
In addition to lacking a push card, Ducote and Ford also do not have another thing most SG candidates toss around a lot in conversation — a list of issues.
For Ducote and Ford, student activities such as athletic and entertainment events are No. 1, because they said those are what most students care about.
“Not to say things like safety forums are less important, but things students will get involved in are certainly more like concerts and trying to go to away football games,” Ducote said.
Highland “helped” Ducote and Ford pass out orange Mardi Gras beads as they talked to students who were sitting on the Parade Ground Monday afternoon.
Mary Beth Edwards, a general studies freshman, said she had not seen either candidate or their information before, but she liked petting Highland and Ducote and Ford’s “low-profile” stance on campaigning.
“That’s a good thing,” Edwards said.
SG activity is nothing new for Ducote. He previously has served as a student senator and on the SG Executive Committee.
Ford has been on an LSU Ambassador and on the Homecoming Committee. Ducote described him as a “tailgating expert” because of his family’s organization, Ford Family Tailgating.
The organization brings “quality tailgating” to the University, Ford said.
The Reveille asked each pair of candidates these questions. The Reveille’s questions are in bold, and Ducote and Ford’s answers are in plain type.
How would you get more students involved in Student Government?
We would get more students involved in SG by giving them more big events to participate in. This mainly includes our mission of creating and increasing student presence at away sporting events. This includes continuing and enhancing the SG bus trip for football, as well as adding SG sponsored trips to away basketball, baseball, track, gymnastics, softball and possibly other events as well. One of our other missions will be to consolidate moneys to bring LSU one great concert rather than three average but poorly attended events. We both have a lot of experience in working with the Union Program Council and we would like to work with them a lot to put on better events, since they are really the campus experts in putting on concerts. This would also bring more people into SG-related events by reaching out to other organizations to help us run student programming.
What do you think is the most important issue students face?
The most important issue we face as students is the credibility of the academics at LSU. Let’s face it — the reason we are here is to get an education. Some of us just want to get a degree, and some really want to expand their mind and learn for the sake of learning and not making money. But, regardless of why we come to LSU, our most important issue is the academic credibility of our institution.
How do your plans involving the Master Plan and Flagship Agenda compare to campus administration’s?
Our plans go very well with the University and Chancellor Mark Emmert’s for the Master Plan and Flagship Agenda. We feel that the Master Plan is a great thing for this University. We will continue to fight for student buildings and independent space such as the Women’s Center, African American Cultural Center and the International Cultural Center. However, as far as overall campus layout goes and the things it will do for traffic and transportation on this campus, the Master Plan is a great thing.
The Flagship Agenda is something that we really agree with the Chancellor on. This University needs to be considered the flagship institution for the state and we are well on our way to getting there. However, we will make sure that LSU keeps the things that makes us unique and not just another UNC Chapel Hill, University of Texas or Georgia. While these are great schools, they lack the culture and traditions that south Louisiana has that makes LSU a truly unique university.
What kind of changes, if any, would you make to Student Government?
We really like the way Student Government has been run for the past three years. We have nothing but respect for the way the last presidents have run their administrations. The Richey/ Wesley administration has been excellent and we look at them as an example of how SG should be run. However, one change we would like to see is cutting some of the SG budget off of bureaucratic nonsense and spending our money on things for the students. This means that we would re-structure our staff to make it more volunteer-based and fewer paid positions.
Is there anything specifically about Allen Richey and Jason Wesley’s administration that you would like to continue or anything you would have done differently?
We will continue, at the very least, the SG bus trip for football, Chats with the Chancellor, and the pajama pants for the first home football game — something that we think is a great University tradition and something that we would like to see continue.
What would you do to increase visibility of SG activity?
We would increase visibility by giving students the kind of programming they want. We will not say that we are going to go out and bother people all throughout the year with surveys and stuff so that they see us on days other than election day. Instead, we are taking a stance that we will not go out and bother people by shoving push cards in their face on election day and in Free Speech Alley. We are instead campaigning by just trying to get our message out to the students through the media and word of mouth rather than forcing it down their throats and wasting all that paper and ink.
What are your thoughts about student parking?
This is a topic in which we have a lot of experience, as well as interest. We know and feel that LSU actually has outstanding parking. Although it may be spread out and kind of a long walk, we still have more parking spaces per student than almost any university in the country, especially schools with 30,000 students.
Students need to look at the bright sides about LSU parking. We don’t park in a lot a mile away and then bus into campus. We also park for a ridiculously cheap price. Commuter tags at LSU are incredibly cheap compared to many other schools that carry flagship status. If we want something like parking garages — which will hurt tailgating and still be as far away as the commuter lots are now — then we will have to pay for them.
The way to make things a little better for parking is to continue to enhance and promote other means of transportation such as taking the bus or riding your bike.
— Staff Writer Alexandria Burris contributed to this story.