Andy Hurtig, senior in accounting, and Joe Tinker, junior in psychology, enter the elections as firm favorites. After receiving 82.49 percent of the votes cast in the primaries, Hurtig and Tinker will look to build on their platforms including the Student Success Collaborative, Open Textbook Initiative and the Co-Curricular Involvement Tracker.
Hurtig and Tinker elaborated on their platforms to the Collegian and shared how they plan to enhance the student experience at K-State.
Collegian: What kind of experience makes you the most qualified candidates in the election?
Hurting & Tinker: We believe that our combined five years worth of past experience will help us greatly moving forward next year. With Andy’s current role as Chief of Staff and Joe’s involvement in the Privilege Fee Committee, we have been able to acquire a great deal of expertise in SGA already and look to continue this involvement.
By having prior knowledge and experience of the inner workings of SGA, we aim to provide for a seamless transition from the already great work of the current administration into the next term.
Collegian: What steps will you take if elected to encourage teachers to implement the Open Textbook Initiative?
Hurtig & Tinker: While it is obvious that students would be interested in this because of the financial benefits, faculty need to understand that students are interested in using alternative materials as opposed to textbooks. By providing materials that are customized for their particular class, the overall quality and experience in the classroom will be drastically improved.
While we understand that this will require a time investment on the part of the faculty, it is our hope that the stipend and increase of the quality of education will provide enough incentive for teachers to adopt the alternative material model.
Collegian: What are some areas where the university and SGA can improve on?
Hurtig & Tinker: We would like to collaborate with university leadership to provide a united front in advocating for higher education in front of government leaders. Open conversations will allow for both sides to be on the same page and yield the best possible course of action moving forward.
Collegian: If you win, what would your first task be?
Hurtig & Tinker: If elected, our first task will be to formulate a team that will work together with student’s interests in mind. We will be seeking out individuals that are hard working, intrinsically motivated and, above all, passionate about making the campus a better place for generations to come.
Once we have put together a diverse team, we will set forward on implementing our platforms as well as continuing the tradition of skillful leadership that the current administration has provided the campus during this term.
Collegian: Your slogan is Enhancing the Experience. How do you think you will do that as president and vice president?
Hurtig & Tinker: We believe that all of our platforms provide for the betterment of the overall student experience during three critical points in time. The Student Success Collaborative would help students find their passion with a major that fits their interests, promoting the Open Textbook Initiative would help improve the educational experience of students while they are in their program, and the Co-Curricular Involvement Tracker would ensure that our students are able to market themselves to employers with real-world skills acquired from their involvement at K-State.
“By having prior knowledge and experience of the inner workings of SGA, we aim to provide for a seamless transition from the already great work of the current administration into the next term.”
Collegian: How will the Co-Curricular Involvement Tracker benefit students?
Hurtig & Tinker: The goal of the Co-Curricular Involvement Tracker is to provide order and meaning to a student’s extracurricular involvement and use this to market themselves to employers. It will translate on-campus involvement into real-world skills for the competitive edge after college.
We would like to make certain that student voices are heard in the decision making for this program to ensure that we formulate a program that our peers would find benefit in using.
Collegian: How much time and effort will it take for students to implement this program?
Hurtig & Tinker: As we begin formulating this program, we will be pursuing a high amount of feedback and input from the student body to make sure that the objectives of the program align with the interests of the students that will use it. We are seeking to shoulder the hard work of crafting the program to make it as easy as possible for students to use when it is officially implemented campuswide.
Collegian: How will the Student Success Collaborative assist students’ academic life?
Hurtig & Tinker: We believe that the Student Success Collaborative will enable students to pursue their academic passions and find a direction that complements their interests. We (Andy and Joe) have both switched majors several times and found the process to be difficult, inefficient and imparts an undue amount of stress on the student trying to figure out their schedules.
Collegian: How will students learn to use both of these programs?
Hurtig & Tinker: As with any new program, there will be a period of extensive training and instruction to ensure a broad-reaching understanding of the initiatives. We believe that the benefits of implementing these new programs will greatly improve on the current system and help students achieve their academic and involvement goals.
Collegian: What prompted you to choose these platforms?
Hurtig & Tinker: Soon after we had decided to run, we sat down and critically evaluated our overall experience at K-State up to this point. We identified things that have gone well, as well as opportunities for improvement. Rather than inventing solutions to problems that don’t exist, we opted to refine and perfect the already top-quality experience for students at K-State. By following this model, we formulated platforms that provided practical solutions to real issues that K-State students face everyday.
Collegian: What will the cost of these programs be?
Hurtig & Tinker: Both of us are students and face the stress of balancing paying for college expenses just like everyone else. We formulated our platforms above all with this reality in mind. It is our primary intention to provide these platforms for use by the student body using cost-effective means of funding.
By pursuing alternative forms of funding rather than placing costs directly on the shoulders of students, we want students to be the beneficiaries of these enhancements to the overall K-State experience. While the exact dollar amounts will have to be discussed moving forward, we pledge that the return on investment will be at the forefront of our priorities and decision making.
