A group of Associated Students of Madison Student Council candidates announced their goals for improving UW-Madison for all students at a news conference Wednesday.
Members of the group, Madison People Organizing for Wisconsin Education Rights, said their goal is to use ASM to make college education more affordable and safe.
Peter Lorenz, a freshman and MPOWER member, said MPOWER hopes to work towards making higher education affordable for more students.
He said they plan to do this by lobbying the local, state and federal government and also working towards improving the ASM textbook exchange.
""We believe in an open, accessible and affordable education for all students on campus, and we want to protect the money that we spend on this education and make sure we get the most out of it,"" Lorenz said.
Jake Burow, a sophomore and MPOWER member, said another way to make college more affordable is controlling the allocation of student segregated fees.
He said he feels these fees are not being used to directly fund student services and plans to change that next year.
""We will work to make sure that these fees are spent here on campus on services that benefit the students and are not used to fill holes in the state budget deficit,"" he said.
According to Jasmine Savoy, a freshman and MPOWER member, another major issue facing UW-Madison's campus today is safety.
She said MPOWER hopes to increase the services that SAFEride provides to students. The service was recently cut from four rides per month to six per semester.
Savoy said she also plans to work toward improving the university's Inclusive Excellence initiative to ensure that students from all backgrounds feel safe on campus.
""Discrimination and hate crimes are a serious problem on this campus,"" she said.
Burow said he feels the only way to accomplish these goals is to increase the unity between UW-Madison students and the Student Council.
""By having a unified relationship between students and the student government, we will be able to get valuable input from students so that we can see the progression of student leadership outside of ASM,"" he said.
