Brayden Pirrung and Elise Lewis are running for president and vice president of the Missouri Students Association on what they call a “student-first plan.”
The duo plans to represent all students and help them in three main categories: support, strengthen and simplify. Through this, they aim to achieve goals such as making the registration process easier, lengthening dining hall hours and cutting back on unnecessary fees.
Support
A top priority for Pirrung and Lewis is supporting students. To achieve this, they plan to increase dining hall hours, improve campus safety and reevaluate affordability.
Pirrung and Lewis want dining halls to be open for longer hours, ultimately aiming for 24/7 Mizzou Market access during finals week.
Additionally, the candidates want to improve current campus safety programs by increasing awareness through social media, email and Canvas. They also want to continue the STRIPES program, a deal with Uber to get students home safely, and spread the word about it. The program is available between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. on weekends and is aimed at preventing students from drinking and driving.
“I don’t want this to be (something) you hear about … once during your tour and Welcome Week, and then kind of never again for the next three years,” Lewis said.
She also highlighted that more communication is needed when emergency alert systems around campus aren’t functioning.
“We would hate for a student to be in a position where they’re needing to alert the authorities or something, and that button is not working,” Lewis said.
As for affordability, Pirrung and Lewis want to cut costs however they can. This includes reconsidering the fee for exercise classes at MizzouRec, which was free until this academic year. They also want to cut the costs of the printing stations around campus.
“College is hard, and the financial burden is something that students are going to feel, and we want to try and limit that,” Pirrung said.
Simplify
The slate’s second category focuses on streamlining on-campus operations, including registration and campus policies. To Pirrung, transparency is key in simplifying operations.
“It’s something that we’re here to expand and make sure that the students have a good experience,” Pirrung said. “ … Whether it’s your transition into the school with your AP, IB, dual credits, whether it’s an excused absence, and just, like, the financial standings, making sure that it’s transparent.”
A major goal of the campaign is to create a new registration portal that emphasizes transparency when transferring credits from high school or previous college education.
“At the end of the day, we’re college students paying for this education, and we need to get the best out of it,” Pirrung said. “If that means we get to take one less gen-ed and one more thing directed straight at our major, I think that’s a huge win.”
Pirrung and Lewis also plan to simplify registration by running it through Stellic and phasing out MyZou.
Other goals of “Simplify” include addressing inaccurate meal plan alerts and creating a standardized excused absence policy.
Strengthen
Strengthening school pride and the connection between students and student government is an important goal of the Pirrung-Lewis slate, according to Lewis.
“We found at other SEC schools, they have more of student involvement through student government,” Lewis said. “So we would love to really just create a better connection through admin and student government to really give students what they want in the best way possible.”
The campaign plans to foster campus-wide relationships and communication via more student involvement opportunities and increased social media awareness of MSA activities.
Pirrung shared this sentiment, stating that the campaign would advocate for increased presence of MSA at events like Welcome Week to appeal to all demographics of students on campus.
“Getting involved in the actual student government, finding your niche, finding what you want to do … that’s just really what we want to do,” Pirrung said. “We want to make sure that students know that we’re here.”
During election week, MSA will host multiple events to encourage voting and inform voters about the various platforms.
- March 16, 6:00-7:00 p.m., Wrench Auditorium – Presidential Debate
- March 17, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Student Center – Pancakes at the Polls
- March 17-19 – Voting Period on MU Engage or Onsite Polling
- March 18, 11:00-1:00 p.m., Student Center – Pop Out to Vote
- March 19, 9:00-11:00 a.m., Student Center – Donuts for Democracy
- March 20, 4:00-5:00 p.m., The Shack – Election Announcements
To learn more about the candidates, read The Maneater’s profile of their slate here.
