While Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Clinton and Sanders battle it out on the big screen for the commander-in-chief position, another election is playing out closer to home.
March 30 is the last day you can log on to UGA’s Involvement Network to vote for the next Student Government Association executive ticket.
Before you choose among the three contenders though, check out what All In, Dare and Commit had to say about their favorite eats around Athens, the new Real Food legislation and campus food issues (hint: dietary restrictions are on the radar).
All In
Photo courtesy of All In UGA
Spoon University (SU): What is your favorite Athens restaurant?
Shallum Atkinson (candidate for president): INOKOs. Not INOKO Express; there’s a huge difference.
Sam Street (candidate for vice president): As cliche as it sounds, I love Last Resort. It’s definitely a treat for sure.
Megan Corriveau (candidate for treasurer): Taqueria Tsunami rocks. The day they added a downtown location closer to campus changed my life.
SU: What is your favorite place to eat on campus?
Atkinson: My favorite place on campus would have to be the new Niche Pizza, and before that, just the Niche.
Street: On campus? Joe Frank Harris for sure. Who doesn’t love having their cheesy bread next to the gym?
Corriveau: My favorite place to eat on campus is the Giorgio’s within the Bulldog Cafe. The Alfredo penne pasta with cheese baked on top is the remedy to almost every bad day.
SU: SGA just passed Real Food‘s legislation to get 20 percent real food on campus. How will you ensure that this becomes a reality? What changes do you want to see on campus in terms of food in the next year?
All In: We are very excited about the recent legislation that just passed, as our platform has included changes to the food services on campus since day one. The Real Food movement is in line with our call for more inclusive options both in the dining halls and in the food eateries (Tate Bulldog Cafe, etc).
Unless you’re on the meal plan, there’s hardly any fresh and healthy food available on campus for meals. We want to work alongside Real Food and the director of Auxiliary Services to enact tangible and timely change.
There are already structural changes being made to current options on campus, and we plan to capitalize on this progress to ensure healthy and religious and allergy friendly options are available as well.
Woven into this plan is inherently the call for Real Food’s mission for sustainability. It can only make our campus stronger. We also want to extend some dining hall hours on the weekends for students who may have work or be studying and cannot meet the 8 pm deadline.
Bringing student opinion to the administration and challenging them for improvements is vital.
Commit UGA
Photo courtesy of Commit UGA
Spoon University (SU): What is your favorite Athens restaurant?
Houston Gaines (candidate for president): The Place
Jacob Fucetola (candidate for vice president): Amicis
Sehar Ali (candidate for treasurer): Clocked
SU: What is your favorite place to eat on campus?
Gaines: The Niche
Fucetola: ECV
Ali: Creamery
SU: SGA just passed Real Food‘s legislation to get 20 percent real food on campus. How will you ensure that this becomes a reality? What changes do you want to see on campus in terms of food in the next year?
Commit: The resolution that passed was supported and co-sponsored by our vice presidential candidate, Jacob Fucetola. We’ll continue to work with Auxiliary Services and other entities. Also, the senator leading the charge of that issue will be back to keep working hard on this issue.
We want to make sure dining halls are more inclusive. We hope to expand the variety of alternative food options in dining halls to accommodate for different diets to ensure that people of all backgrounds can eat in the dining halls.
Additionally, we hope to keep working with auxiliary services to bring popular options all across campus.
Dare UGA
Photo courtesy of Dare UGA via facebook.com
Spoon University (SU): What is your favorite Athens restaurant?
Tifara Brown (candidate for president): I love Nona’s and Transmet.
Gaby Reyes (candidate for vice president): My favorite Athens restaurants are Thai Spoon, The National (if I don’t have to pay haha), and Insomnia Cookies (that counts as a restaurant, right?).
Hamilton Way (candidate for treasurer): My favorite Athens restaurants are Clocked, Athens Bagel, and the Niche (it counts as a restaurant).
SU: What is your favorite place to eat on campus?
Brown: Niche and Snelling are my places.
Reyes: On campus, I love to eat at the new Niche Pizza in Tate because it’s open until midnight, and I’m always on campus way too late.
Way: My favorite place to eat is the chairs on the fourth floor of Tate with friends so I can watch over the campus.
SU: SGA just passed Real Food‘s legislation to get 20 percent real food on campus. How will you ensure that this becomes a reality? What changes do you want to see on campus in terms of food in the next year?
Dare: The Real Food legislation is awesome, and Tifara and I [Gaby] were so happy to be able to vote in favor of it in senate. We would ensure this gets implemented by first encouraging President Morehead and Provost Whitten to sign onto the plan, and then by working with the incredible students that have been rallying for Real Food on our campus and making sure that they have the resources they need to really create the change this plan is seeking.
We want to see changes to increase food inclusivity on campus. A lot of students have dietary restrictions, whether that be for religious, allergy or other reasons, and we would make sure that these students have the variety and quality of food that they deserve from the dining halls as well as all campus eateries.