| Kelsea Renz editor-in-chief |

Pittsburg State University’s tuition rates may soon be frozen where they are for the next two fiscal years, that is if a proposal drafted by the State Senate late Wednesday, April 1, is passed.
With a projected budget shortfall of more than $600 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1, Gov. Sam Brownback has pushed to keep higher education funding relatively flat.
The proposal to freeze tuition, which evolved from budget talks between the Senate and the House, is one such measure legislators are hoping will achieve Brownback’s goal.
A budget negotiation meeting to discuss a proposed $15.5 billion spending plan for the state, ended with three senators and three representatives reaching the agreement to avoid cuts in spending for the two largest universities in the state: the University of Kansas and Kansas State University.
Though the Senate originally approved cuts of $4.6 million for KU and $3.2 million for K-State, negotiators added the provision of prohibiting other state universities, including KU and K-State, from increasing tuition rates for the next two years.
The legislators say they introduced this proposal because they were concerned how increases in tuition would affect Kansas’ students and their families.
“We’re all concerned about the amount of debt students leave our universities with,” said Ron Ryckman Jr. House appropriations committee chairman, in a quote published by the Associated Press.

Race to ‘Oval’ office – Election 2015: Banana vs. Gorilla

| Audrey Dighans copy editor |

Gorillas, it is time to vote for next year’s student government president, vice president and new Senate members.
Voting will begin on Monday, April 6, and go through 11:59 p.m. Thursday, April 9. Students can cast their ballot by logging into GUS under ballots and surveys.

The candidates
Hostetler & Herring

“It’s a Jungle out there,” and that is exactly what candidates Kyle Hostetler and Rachel Herring of The Banana Party are telling voters.
Hostetler, junior in graphic communications, is running for president and Herring, sophomore in Spanish and political science, vice president.
The Banana Party’s goals, if elected, include exploring the option of extending Thanksgiving Break to a full week, expanding student resources and creating an easier allocations process, as well as expanding Student Government Association (SGA)’s connectivity.
“We want the students to see SGA as an ally,” Herring said. “We want to promote a positive image of SGA. The Banana Party feels that requiring organizations to send students to SGA’s weekly meetings has created a negative image. This is time those students could be spending empowering their own organizations.”

Hostetler says expanding academic resources is another strong platform for the Banana Party.
“We would like to see a requirement for professors to have to use Canvas,” he said. “This means updating grades and due dates, overall improving the communication between students and teachers. There should also be online syllabuses available for students to reference before enrollment.”
Other resource additions include providing free Blue Books and expanding open educational resources (OER) in the library.
“OER could provide nearly all general education textbooks to students for free,” Hostetler said.
“This is one way we would enable students to better afford their education,” Herring added, “which, yes, is quite affordable and we get an excellent value for our dollar at PSU, but more cuts to higher education are coming.”
The Banana Party says electing them will result in a “fresh face” in SGA.
“I’m just a student,” Hostetler said. “Not a politician. I don’t see politics, I see tangible changes that could benefit the student body.”
Herring added that the Banana Party candidates have the ability to look objectively at situations brought before the Senate since many of the party members have not made a career out of SGA while enrolled at PSU.

Gilchrist & Haynes

Jaci Gilchrist, junior in political science, and Michael Haynes, junior in physical education, together make up A Gorilla League, members of which are “empowering you at PSU.”
Both Gilchrist and Haynes currently serve in Student Government Association (SGA): Gilchrist is outgoing vice president and Haynes is outgoing campus affairs director.
“Academics are our priority,” Gilchrist said. “A Gorilla League will advocate for undergrad programs.”
Haynes says when the Spanish and French majors were cut last year, many students were upset by the changes.
“We think it’s bad that programs are being cut,” he said. “If elected, A Gorilla League will work with the administrators to identify ‘red-flagged’ programs to come up with a way to improve the program so it won’t have to be cut.”
A Gorilla League is also hoping to bring a research-based Ph.D program to the Kansas Technology Center.
“That will be a long process,” Haynes said. “But we want to and have the will to get the ball rolling.”
A Gorilla League is looking to make the Library’s upcoming trial of extended hours during dead week and finals week a reoccurring and permanent fixture.
“We will include midterms as well,” Gilchrist said. “Michael and I together have 10 semesters of SGA experience as well as established relationships with a variety of people at PSU and in the community, relationships that take time to build.
“We will not have to waste any time establishing those relationships; they already exist and that enables us to go to work on day one, if elected.”
A Gorilla League is also strongly behind the proposed shuttle-bus system.
“We were told to get a trial run of it up and going would take years,” Gilchrist said. “Michael and I come from an SGA where we got that trial system up within one year. We expect big things from this.”
Tailgate reform, expanding intramurals, pushing for the creation of club sports and the creation of an SGA app that would allow easy access to all of SGA are other platforms A Gorilla League stands for.
“SGA has so much momentum,” Haynes said. “We want to harness that momentum and continue to drive it in the right direction.”