Soft spoken and with a slightly wavery voice, one wonders how Trotta fared over his last year as Senate representative. Occasionally awkward in his articulations, Trotta seems like an unlikely choice to represent the often strong viewpoints of the general undergraduate population.
And yet, Trotta has some highly redeeming points. As previously mentioned, this would be his second term in the senate, a committee whose members often have much longer than a year to complete their projects. Trotta has recognized his Senate experience as one of his key strengths and has defined his platform accordingly.
For instance, he speaks (cryptically) of a project to streamline senate processes and explains, with his experienced presence the changes being made will go smoother than with a new candidate. There is no doubt continuity is a strong point to run on in a race for a position like Senate.
Arguably, however, what is most important for a candidate in a democratic race is to have clearly defined ideas about the role and clear plans for implementation of those ideas. Trotta lacks this clarity, citing his ambiguous plans for fiscal responsibility and student exposure backing them up with few solid plans for implementation.
Having experience is Trotta’s strongest point as a candidate in this race, but this point is not strong enough to compete with what is being offered by the other candidates. Against him is his lack of presence–probably his worst fault given the Senate’s primary role is to interact with the extra-university community–and his lack of clear goals. It would seem that continuity is not best in this case.
How will your position on senate help students?
“Right now, we’re working on two projects. One of them is student exposure. Having an experienced member that’s already working on this, it is good to have continuity. Also, we are working on a project to streamline the senate.”
What student issues need to be represented in the senate?
“The senate has an obligation to look out for the fiscal responsibility of students. We want to be an advisor to the government about how the university is standing, not just what they read in the papers, but behind the scenes.”
Why should students care about the SU senate representative position?
“It’s important to have somebody represent students. we have representatives from the community, we have representatives from alumni. As an advisory board to administration, there is a fair amount of sway that we can have.”