On Tuesday March 7, the ASOSU presidential and vice presidential candidates confronted one another for the first time at a live debate hosted by Orange Media Network on the fourth floor of the Student Experience Center.

The three tickets are Hevani Fifita and Hunter Briggs, Jacqueline Logsdon and Josey Koehn, and Simon Brundage and Radhika Shah. In their opening statements, each of the candidates brought up their overarching themes.

Fifita and Briggs focused on listening to the voices of students, especially those previously underrepresented in student government.

“We really want to put the student back in student government,” Fifita said. “If we are in office, it is you that calls the shots, it is you that tells us what we need to be doing.”

Logsdon and Koehn highlighted their pasts, both in student government and the Vote or Vote voter registration campaign.

“We would like to take our experience and allow other students the opportunity and experience that we had and continue building student leaders,” Logsdon said.

Brundage and Shah concentrated on their desires for transparency and accountability.

“This campaign is based off of fundamental change,” Brundage said. “It’s about reevaluating our priorities and reassessing our methods of addressing them. It’s about cultivating an environment of student advocacy and unity, while also combating the divisive rhetoric on campus.”

The main questions brought up during this debate revolved around student safety, diversity and inclusivity on campus and college affordability. On the issue of student safety, the candidates offered a wide range of plans to combat sexual assault specifically.

“The Blue Light system has been very localized to the center of campus and we’re really hoping to expand that program, which has not been expanded in quite a while, out towards 33rd, 34th and 35th street,” Brundage said.

Fifita and Briggs discussed a plan to build on the current ASOSU SafeRide van service to shorten wait times for students.

“We want to create a program, so if you ever do feel unsafe or if you ever do feel like you do not want to walk home alone, you can call a number and have someone walk you to wherever you need to be,” Fifita said. “We want to create a program to aid SafeRide and to make those things quicker. We also want to help provide awareness.”

Logsdon and Koehn discussed the ways that they want to improve on sexual assault prevention throughout all of OSU.

“What we advocate for is year round programming in association with Its On Us, SARC, SASS, greek life, student athletes,” Logsdon said. “Creating a conversation on campus that hasn’t been had, training on bystander interventions and making sure our community is there for each other and willing to stand up and protect each other when it comes to sexual assault prevention.”