According to FUSA president Karen Donoghue, FUSA’s main goal as an organization is to get information out to the students. As the elections are just around the corner, Donoghue has her own ideas about what the next FUSA president should be.
Recalling her campaign last year, Donoghue describes the time as being “the hardest two weeks of my life.”
With less than three weeks until a new FUSA president is elected, Donoghue finds herself caught up in all the excitement as an observer for this year’s election.
“I’m so excited to watch this all go down,” said Donoghue. “They are going through exactly what I did a year ago.”
When she took the highest position that a student can hold at Fairfield, Donoghue brought in a strong work ethic and a dedication to stick to the platforms that she initiated during her campaign last year. Her hopes for the future FUSA president most importantly include picking up in areas where she may have lacked.
All shortcomings aside, including a spring concert band yet to be decided, Donoghue has implemented such programs as FUSA’s Open Forum series, created a push for athletic attendance and continued an open line of communication in FUSA between its members and university administrators.
Donoghue has strong views on what the candidates for the job should know.
“Whoever is running should not want this job just for the title,” Donoghue said. “The only perk I get is a faculty parking spot. They have to realize it is a job.”
“The candidates should have a good resume,” Donoghue added. “They should be involved in some aspect of the Fairfield community. They shouldn’t just come out of the woodwork and decide to do this.”
Encouraging, motivated and dedicated are three adjectives that the current president feels that the future president should have in their repertoire as characteristics.
Donoghue says that she will always feel as though she could have done more. “I feel that I have completed some things, but there is always going to be things left to complete,” Donoghue said. “I feel like finally the food is good and Jazzman’s has definitely added to that.”
The next issues that Donoghue wants to address include the ongoing housing problem, the Rec-Plex and a continued push for athletic support.
One of the things that Donoghue wanted to improve during her presidency was voter apathy among the student body. Her attempt was to transform the voting process altogether by getting rid of the voting booths and making online voting possible.
“The freshman elections were conducted through Campus Pipeline,” Donoghue said, “and we were hoping that we could get the FUSA elections done the same way.”
However, problems arose during the past few months and voting will be conducted in the traditional way at the Barone Campus Center on February 25th. This means that you will get your last piece of candy from the candidates just as you walk in before the voting begins.
“It will be kind of nice to see one more election the traditional way though,” Donoghue said. “The candidates will really have to show how bad they want it.”
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