Interview With Veiga-Colonnese

The Heights: What first inspired you to run?

RV: We've been thinking about running since freshman year. One of our friends is in the UGBC Senate and has always kept us updated on everything going on and is always telling us that we should run. Now it's our last chance, so we decided we had to do it. We've also just had a lot of ideas. In the past a lot of campaigning has just been looking at t-shirts and flyers and seeing what colors they are. A lot of people don't really understand the issues, so we're hoping we can get our ideas out there.

JC: A lot of ideas many people are campaigning on aren't the important issues on campus. I've seen candidates talk about transparency a lot. Never once have I talked to a student who says, "I really wish I could see where the money goes and how much money is the president spending on this and that" because no one is worried about them embezzling funds. No one is worried about them cheating the system, which is what transparency is really concerned about. If you're running for national office then that's a hot button issue. But for BC President? It's not really a concern. The day-to-day quality of life elements are the parts of a campaign that will really affect students.

The Heights: What are your qualifications for the job? What skill sets have you developed that will allow you to be successful UGBC executives?

RV: Right now I'm the treasurer of Real Foods. Jeff is on Real Foods too and we've both been event coordinators, so we have experience working with people and planning events. We also have experience handling money, which is a big part of being president, allocating different funds across the campus. Definitely too one of the aspects is teamwork.

JC: One of the things that CSOM really teaches well is how to work well in a group setting. I think that we really have enough experience in being team players, knowing when to speak up and knowing when to let someone else take the lead. We also know when we have to stand up and take charge.

RV: We can also present our ideas clearly. A lot of people have good ideas but if you don't put them out there right then people won't really listen.

The Heights: What will your actual campaign be like? How do you plan to influence voters during this process?

RV: We're not buying t-shirts because we're sticking to fiscal responsibility. We're doing a lot of work on Facebook and we're doing a lot of door-to-door campaigning, just going around campus and meeting people.

JC: I'm sure we'll get a banner because you have to play the game a little bit.

RV: We really want to win this presidency based on our ideas and not really buying votes.

JC: Kids are spending 400 bucks on t-shirts and you get 30 or 40 kids walking around everyday with these shirts. You see the color and you see a name but did you ever meet that person? Do you even know what they're running for? For most people the answer is no. They've seen whatever color all the time so they think those candidates are the best. They're just the ones willing to spend the most money and they're not really backing up their campaign with ideas. We're just hoping that the word spreads on campus. Both of us have talked to a lot of people in the past couple days and they say that they've heard about us from one of their friends. So the word is catching on and we hope it continues to keep going. We said in the beginning if we're going to run we're going to do it our way. Now that we're running and this is actually happening we're not going to change what we've been saying for the past month or two.

The Heights: What are the major points of your platform? What will you do if elected?

RV: We have three main points: event reform, quality improvement reform, and student government reform.

JC: Let's talk about the events first. Obviously there was no concert on campus this year, which is pretty ridiculous. The concerts are a lot of fun. There are 5000 kids there, everyone you know is there and everyone just has a good time. It's a good community bonding experience that we don't have anymore. We definitely want to get those back. I'm sure everyone is saying that but that's a big issue and one of the key motivations for us to run. We trust ourselves to get that done, and if we're elected this is something that we're just going to push through until it works.

RV: We always talk about fiscal responsibility, and that goes hand in hand with this. Were going to try to make every dollar count for the most, and if we have to cut some budgets in certain areas and put that money towards the concerts, then that will have to be done.

JC: There are a bunch of groups that have events on campus. The theatre classes put on concerts, the a cappella groups perform, the comedy groups put on shows, but there's really no central place to post about any of this. You see posters around campus, and there are Facebook groups but not everyone is part of them. We want to have a website with a calendar set up where groups can post a description of their event and explain how to buy tickets and how expensive they will be, to sort of centralize it. This is a good alternative because a lot of people are upset with NOTH and the amount of money that they get because a lot of people don't go.

RV: I've been to a couple of NOTH events where there were only 3 or 4 people there.

JC: This would be a good way to have an alternate non-drinking event to go to that doesn't cost an excessive amount of student money. Another reform we want relates to students scalping tickets. Tickets for events like Plexapalooza are sold for 15 dollars at Robsham. If a student decides to go to an event like this at the last second, all of a sudden the tickets are 50 bucks. It's disappointing to see kids walking up and down a line scalping tickets for twice face value at a student-sponsored BC event. So what we're going to do is have tickets printed with face value on them, and we'll have some sort of disciplinary action if you sell them above face value. This might not stop the problem immediately, but it might be a deterrent that will eventually get rid of it. All these kids are doing is taking advantage of another kid for monetary purposes and people aren't going to the events because of that. They aren't willing to pay 50 bucks for a ticket. I wouldn't pay 50 bucks for a ticket.

RV: Our second reform is the student government reform. Essentially we're just trying to get more power to the people. It's getting more and more that UGBC and ResLife make all the decisions on campus. We feel that that's just a small handful of people that don't really represent the student population that well. We're trying to make open forums where the students can come in and talk to members of UGBC and share their ideas, and we also want to have more voting for different things on campus. The only things people vote on now are elections. We want to get them involved in the senators' decisions.

JC: Any hot button issue we'd have to make a decision on we'd want to get a student vibe on. We'd open this up to the students and have more direct votes and more interaction.

RV: We're thinking about having a blog online that goes along with UGBC so people can post their ideas about certain issues.

JC: I know a lot of kids were complaining in previous years about who gets the concert. We'd try to have more student influence in this, or even simple things like dates of the concerts. If UGBC polls everyone on certain dates you could see how many people are going to go.

RV: In addition to programs, that also goes along with certain disciplinary rules going on around campus. I know they changed certain rules with the infirmary and alcohol-related rules. We want to see how students would react and test them out with the students before just putting them out there. So next is quality improvements, improving the day-to-day quality of life. A lot of people forget that the job of the president and vice president is to be a direct link to Boston College more as an organization to improve the quality of life. One of our ideas is having satellite printers in all of the libraries. This way people wouldn't have to use the BC computers to print; they could just do it directly from their laptops.

JC: We want to put a printer here in the Vandy Cabaret Room. It's a real pain to have to hike up from Lower to print. We also want to get one in O'Connell house. That would prevent freshmen from having to walk all the way to O'Neill to print something out. If you have to print a lot of stuff out, walking to O'Neill is okay, but if it's just two pages that's a hassle.

RV: We also want to make Newton's gym a little bit better. I was on the Rugby team and I remember kids on the team would have to come to the Plex to workout before practice just because the gym on Newton is so small and it doesn't really have the machines that kids use.

JC: If stuff breaks at the Plex they ship it out to Newton. They're getting hand-me-downs from the Plex, which is bad enough as it is. Also about the Plex, we want to have a laundry view system for the elliptical machines. If you go during peak hours you know it's going to be busy. Some days there are three or four machines open, and some days there are three or four girls waiting to get on the machines. You never really know. We have a couple ways to fix this. We could put cameras in the far end of the Plex so you can see the people there but not who they are so it's not a privacy concern. You would still be able to see if someone's at a machine or not. Another idea was having the swipe-in at the Plex being put online so you could see how many people are coming in each hour. If 50 people came in the last hour, you might not want to go at that time.

The Heights: What makes you different from the other teams running?

RV: Tangible, specific ideas separate us from the other candidates. We want to get espresso in Mac and Lower. Simple ideas that are very feasible and could be put into action.

JC: Another thing is fiscal responsibility. In the past a lot of people have just allocated the money evenly and just put it where people ask for it. We really want the maximum utility for each dollar and to make sure that students are going to the events that we put money into. We don't want to waste any money. There's no reason why if things haven't gone well in the past, throwing more money at them will be a solution.

RV: Another thing is bringing back the power to the people. We want to get that democracy feeling at BC, which I don't know if any of the other candidates are campaigning on. During the year there's only one thing you vote on, and that needs to be changed.

The Heights: What else have you been involved with at BC?

RV: I've played rugby for the past few years. I'm also involved in investment club. Both of us have been involved with Real Foods for the past two years.

JC: I do a lot of intramural sports as well. I'm involved with Finance Academy, the consulting club, and I'm a TA for a couple of accounting classes.

RV: There's been a lot of networking this year, looking for internships. That's been taking up a ton of time.

The Heights: How will you two work together as a team?

RV: We've known each other since freshman year and we've very rarely conflicted on any issues. If there were any differences we'd work them out and find a solution. We'll always see what other people think as well.

The Heights: You've talked about aggressively pursuing the concerts. How will you be able to do this differently from the current UGBC executives?

RV: When it comes down to it, the administration can choose to not have the concert, but we'd get the whole student population behind us.

JC: This would be a good time to vote. If we get 6,000 or 7,000 undergrads to go online and say we support having a concert, that's tough for the administration to deny.

RV: Last year in Real Foods the administration kept trying to shut us down for this idea to bring Fair Trade bananas in. We just went around and got 1,000 signatures, and they ended up saying okay—if that many people are willing to support it and to pay the extra price, then we might as well do it.

The Heights: What difficulties do you foresee in the campaign process?

RV: This will definitely be a lot of hours. Other than that I don't see anything that will be too difficult.

The Heights: Anything else you'd like to let voters know?

JC: Look at the ideas and make an informed decision. Our slogan is "We do it better." And it's true.