Relationships Core to Jacob + Mikayla Campaign

Erica Nitschke | The Spectrum Jacob Dailey and Mikayla Young are running for student body president and VP.
ERICA NITSCHKE | THE SPECTRUM
Jacob Dailey and Mikayla Young are running for student body president and VP.

Jacob Dailey and his running mate Mikayla Young make up one of the four tickets in the 2016 North Dakota State student body presidential election.

“For us, it’s about filling a position where we can do the most good,” Dailey said.

The pair knew of each other through their previous experiences in student government and were each other’s first choice as a running mate.

Dailey and Young’s platform consists of three pillars, and each of the three pillars has three subpoints.

“We wanted to run differently. We wanted to make a really compact, concise platform that we’re really passionate about,” Dailey said.

“Relationships are like the core of our campaign, the core of our platform,” Dailey said. He said that the goal is to utilize relationships along with previous experience with administrators, students and the community that is already had.

Advocate

The first pillar of Dailey and Young’s campaign is advocate.

The ticket said that they want the voices of international, graduate and veteran students to be more represented on campus.

The first subpoint of advocate is to look at the insurance programs for students. Dailey said that students have come up to him and Young to say that they do not want as much coverage that is supplied by the school, and they do not wish to pay for it either.

Dailey said the ultimate goal is to get to a build-your-own program, but in the meantime, a more practical change would be to change from a one lump sum payment into several smaller payments, making the insurance program more affordable.

The second subpoint is to give veterans on campus a more visible and present resource space, ideally moving the current veterans’ office from Ceres Hall to Memorial Union, Dailey said.

The final subpoint of the first pillar is to get grad students equal compensation for their work, and for the graduate research work program to become more transparent.

Enhance

Enhancing advising practices at NDSU is the first subpoint of the second pillar of Dailey and Young’s campaign.

Dailey said that the ticket wishes to evaluate what is successful in current advising programs and apply it in areas that are not as successful.

Young also said that each college’s advising program should be treated differently, because every college is different. She added that Dailey and herself wish to make advising mandatory before registration, and also look at applying group advising to all colleges.

The second point of Dailey and Young’s campaign is to highlight mental health programs on campus, and enhance the ones they can.

The final point of the second pillar of Dailey and Young’s campaign is to implement a car sharing program through Enterprise at NDSU.

Dailey and Young’s carshare prgram would focus on students who would not normally have a car on campus, such as international students.

The program would start small with only two to five cars, which would all be colored Bison colors.

Young said that student government currently has a contract and working relationship with Enterprise, and that if they were elected, the program could be implemented by the end of the year.

Connect

“A lot of students downtown feel like they’re not really engaged with the main campus,” Dailey said.

Dailey said that downtown students and programs are successful, and that “we want to get main campus more involved downtown.”

He added that they wish to go to Kilbourne or Roers during the time of building development to try to get downtown facilities more affordable to students.

Civic engagement is the second point of Dailey and Young’s campaign, as the duo said that they want students to understand the processes about voting and to get involved in their community.

Young said the final point is that her and Dailey want to reinvent Family Day. She said that in the past, family day happened in the fall and the incentive to come would be football tickets.

As football tickets cannot be handed out anymore, the day would be switched to spring semester and tied with events that already happen.

Also included in Dailey and Young’s Connect pillar would be maintaining relationships with organizations on campus.

Young said that candidates only go to see organizations during election time, but the two plan on going to organizations every month.

“Jacob and I would like to be held accountable,” Young said.

Election 2016

“It’s been fun, but it’s been a very unique experience, that’s for sure,” Dailey said about the current student body election.

Young said that they are enjoying having four tickets, as it keeps them going and makes them more accountable.

Young said that win or lose, Dailey and herself want to “sit down with all of the other candidates and look at every single platform point that’s out there to create a whole new platform.”

Dailey added that though the core of their platform would remain the same, they “don’t have every good idea” and would always be improving.

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