As a self-confessed A.S. novice, Adam Teitelbaum anchors his presidential campaign not to starting policies and programming efforts from scratch as his Clean Slate affiliation suggests, but to finding a middle ground between student wants and administration demands. This rookie believes he has the perfect bird’s eye view to accomplish that.
‘[I’m] going to be able to look at any issue or budget and say, you know what, from an outside perspective, that doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t seem efficient,’ Teitelbaum said.
With a firm stance on snowballing student input and his slate motto of ‘it’s what you make of it, and we’re here to help,’ Teitelbaum proposes melding current publicity methods such as Facebook and Price Center flyers with new techniques including university Web sites like TritonLink to magnetize student involvement in council decisions and policy revisions while advertising A.S. programming and athletic events.
‘We’re not going to put our Facebook profiles on private, and we’re going to use things like Twitter, AIM accounts, and Facebook so students are writing the A.S. agenda, and A.S. doesn’t write the students’ agenda,’ he said. As of presstime, Teitelbaum’s Facebook was set to private.
Teitelbaum said TritonLink, especially, can be a valuable tool to have pop-up ads for campus news and events when students log in or attempt to access their information.’ From a functional standpoint, Teitelbaum’s recommendations are feasible, but administrators must ‘determine if [students] will be annoyed by constant ads,’ Director of Electronic Communications Beth Surrell said.
Current A.S. President Donna Bean said student input will be achieved most effectively through council representatives who visit student organization meetings.
‘Adam is absolutely unqualified, [with] no expectations [and] no goals,’ she said.
Ironically, Teitelbaum’s push for heightened interaction with students is coupled with his support of free speech zones, which many believe inhibit students’ voices. He even goes so far as to propose the use of permits to ensure that protestors secure administrative approval, though he adamantly reproves discrimination of permit allocation based on content or race.
‘If [students] want to be at work in the library or classroom and don’t want to bothered, they shouldn’t be bothered,’ Teitelbaum said.
The acquisition of permits, however, collides with the expediency of impromptu protests; Teitelbaum suggests establishing a hotline for protestors to contact the police department or the vice chancellor of student affairs’ office in order to obtain verbal approval.
Similarly, Teitelbaum’s vision of the Sun God Festival focuses on student safety, and includes his staple, middle-ground approach. He cites two reasons why the event will never return
to its original format: the administration and police department.
Teitelbaum advocates returning the festival to its original all-campus format, and proffers a compromise by working with administrators and the police department to revise the current alcohol policy. Specifically, he wants alcohol-centered events and alcohol-related sponsorship for events like Bear Gardens, which would cut funding costs for the A.S. Council, cover outlay for heightened security and provide an incentive for of-age students to attend campus events. He hasn’t yet spoken with administrators about the policy.
A.S. Associate Vice President of Programming Garrett Berg said doubling back to Sun God’s all-campus format would diminish the festival’s longevity.
‘We want Sun God to be campus community and festival first, and if there’s alcohol there, it’s a smaller part of it,’ Berg said.
Teitelbaum is no stranger to being a leader outside of the A.S. Council. As last year’s Alpha Epsilon Pi president, he banned drug use during chapter events by revising the fraternity constitution to include punishments for violators, such as suspension. Although the policy sparked opposition, current President Joey Lipton-Schwartz said enforcement has been offset by the fraternity’s inability to prevent drug use outside of brotherhood activities.
Teitelbaum also served as Eleanor Roosevelt College’s housing and dining committee representative for two years, where he dealt with policy revisions ‘mdash; including a fee increase from $1,800 to $2,700. Teitelbaum blames the fee hikes on the escalating price of providing housing and dining services, and put the amount in perspective by comparing it to La Jolla’s high living costs.
Teitelbaum said his ability to adjust housing and dining policies under real-world hurdles will translate to the A.S. presidency because he would need to incorporate shifting variables like the economic downturn into council decisions. And although he admits his blanket ideas will not solve all campus issues, he believes he can start redirecting policies and programming toward students’ interests.