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MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2017 | VOLUME 133 ISSUE 22
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
Students elect OneKU, vote down Union referendum
end of the day, we got some independent students that supported us elected,” Adams said after the results were announced. “We’re sad, but we’re not done.” Four candidates from Onward were elected. The coalition’s presidential candidate Chance Maginness said he is excited to see what Womack and OneKU vice presidential candidate Mattie Carter do during their tenure. “I am excited for what the future of Student Senate will look like,” Maginness said after the results. “Just because we lost doesn’t mean Student Senate lost.”
DARBY VANHOUTAN @darbyvanhoutan
F
or the second year in a row, a coalition running under the name OneKU has won the Student Senate elections. The unofficial results showed the OneKU presidential and vice presidential candidates defeating the KUnited, Onward and TrueKU coalitions to win the election. “I think this really shows that people are really excited about our platforms, and that’s what really is the best feeling,” said Mady Womack, the newly-elected student body president from OneKU. Students also voted to fail the Union referendum, which would have allocated a $50 per student fee to fund a renovation of the Kansas Union. These results, though accurate, aren’t official, according to Student Senate Rules and Regulations. Elections Commission has to take time to hear violations and complaints and then certify the tabulations. They plan to announce the official results on Wednesday.
UNION REFERENDUM FAILS
Ashley Hocking/KANSAN Mattie Carter, Reagan Walsh and Mady Womack celebrate OneKU’s Student Senate victory on April 14 at The Wheel. Womack and Carter were elected the student body president and student body vice president. Official results will be announced Wednesday.
COALITIONS REACT TO RESULTS As OneKU celebrated their victory at the Wagon Wheel on Friday night, just up the hill at the Oread, KUnited watched solemnly as they learned their presidential and vice presidential candidates had been defeated. Despite the loss,
however, several students on KUnited’s senatorial slate were successful — a total of 21 coalition members won seats in the senate. KUnited presidential candidate Tomas Green was tearful after the results as he consoled candidates as well as supporters in attendance.
“A lot of people here were elected today to serve this great University,” Green said after the results were announced. “We can all still do this. Our work is not ending. [Vice Presidential candidate] Zoya [Khan] and I were not successful but our work is not ending either.”
A total of seven independent candidates were elected, many of whom supported the TrueKU coalition after it lost its senatorial slate earlier this month. TrueKU presidential candidate Chancellor Adams said his coalition isn’t done either. “We’re not sad. At the
Lev Comolli, co-founder of KU Against Rising Tuition (KUART) who led a campaign against the Union renovations, said the group is celebrating the results and looking forward to speaking with Union executives moving forward. Comolli said, besides advocating for a “no” vote, the purpose of KUART’s campaign was to “speak for the students.” “We’re excited that we SEE RESULTS PAGE 2
How KU aims to combat rising suicide rates in KS ANGIE BALDELOMAR @AngieBaldelomar
Miranda Clark Ulrich/KANSAN Redo Your U had a hearing on April 5 to determine whether the campaign would be disqualified from the upcoming election. The Elections Commission will hear six new complaints on Monday.
New complaints may affect election results DARBY VANHOUTAN @darbyvanhoutan
With a total of six Elections Commission hearings scheduled for Monday, Student Senate elections are far from over. Among these complaints is one calling for the disqualification of OneKU, filed by KUnited. The complaint alleges, with included video footage, that members of the OneKU coalition violated section 7.5.8.3. of Student Senate Rules and
Regulations (SSRR). It states that individuals are not allowed to campaign at polling sites or stand where they can view a voter’s phone or computer when they are voting. Though OneKU was declared the unofficial winner on Friday, the coalition can still be disqualified if found by the Elections Commission to have violated the rule. The complaint claims that individuals, including presidential candidate
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Mady Womack and Elections Commission Liaison Charles Jetty, stood outside Mrs. E’s dining hall on April 13 and helped students vote. While doing so, the complaint alleges, OneKU members talked to the students from a place where they could see the students’ votes. KUnited submitted videos of the interactions attached to the complaint, which they say demonstrate SEE VIOLATIONS PAGE 2
With suicide rates increasing state and nationwide, the University is increasing its effort to improve access to mental health services for students. The efforts are aided by the Campus Suicide Prevention Grant, which was awarded to the University last year. Its goal is to strengthen and widen the safety net available to students in crisis by partnering different campus and community organizations, such as Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and the Headquarters Counseling Center. “With that fund in place, there’s a lot of motivation right now to be doing stuff,” said Christine Waisner, president of the student group KU Active Minds. KU Active Minds is also working in collaboration with CAPS and Headquarters to improve access to mental health resources
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and fight misconceptions and stigmas surrounding the topic. Waisner said the group is trying to implement changes on campus to reduce depression and suicide rates through different programs, along with training for teachers and anyone who works for the University. The most important initiative right now, Waisner said, is to get the national suicide prevention number on the back of the KU ID cards. Suicide is the second most leading cause of death among ages 10-34 in Kansas, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In 2015, 477 people died by suicide in Kansas, with a 16.21 rate per 100,000. Since 2010, the rates have steadily increased across the country and in Kansas. In fact, the Kansas rate has been higher than the national rate since 2010. Researchers are trying to figure out possible causes for this increase.
Sarah Kirk, director of the KU Psychological Clinic, a training clinic for PhD students that offers low-cost mental health services for people at the University and the Lawrence community, said she sees it as a “constellation of factors.” These factors include money problems, lower access to treatment and an overall increase in depression and anxiety. She said concerns over policies on gun use, including the upcoming implementation of guns on campus, could also influence this increase. Andy Brown, Headquarters’ executive director, agreed with Kirk on gun policies as a possible factor for the increase in suicide rates. “I think a lot of it comes down to people have more legal access to lethal means of suicide, so there’s an increased access to firearms,” he said. Although there is not a hard number on suicide rates within the UniverSEE SUICIDE PAGE 3
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