In short: Miriam Fry has the drive, experience and vision to be a successful VP for Academic Affairs.
When one candidate was selected as senator of the year by her peers, the decision is not too difficult.
Aaron Zucker has a year of experience in the Senate to stand behind, but his experience pales in comparison to that of Miriam Fry. Fry has been a senator for two years and was selected senator of the year this year. She demonstrated a dedication to integrity by proposing the resolution that changed the wording of the Code of Laws to eliminate an ambiguity over Senate approval for funding. SGA leaders will no longer have to discuss the meaning of “subject to.”
Fry not only brings experience, she brings plans. One plan would add completed course evaluations to myBama, so that students can see how other students feel about the instructor. While similar to Web sites like RateMyProfessor.com, this system would require that students commenting have actually taken the class, making it more reliable. Fry also proposes to integrate eLearning with students’ University email accounts, allowing students who may not otherwise check eLearning to see any updates their instructors have posted on eLearning.
Advising is another emphasis for Fry. She wants to improve the advising system by allowing students to schedule appointments online. She’d also like to add a system where students can chat live with advisors online.
Zucker promises to improve communication with students and pursue plans that would encourage students to graduate in four years. He believes that the most important thing is informing students, and he is right. He also wants to expand the mini-mester program, raising awareness of it so that more students can take advantage of it. Zucker also believes in the importance of lowering class size, especially for higher-level classes. He would keep tabs on student-to-faculty ratio.
Zucker also proposes to investigate a change in the grading scale, eliminating pluses and minuses. He supports this idea because it would increase the competitiveness of Alabama graduates by raising GPAs lowered by minuses. Alabama grads should not need artificially inflated GPAs in order to compete with graduates from schools like South Carolina. They should have the University’s name backing them up, the name of a school that pushes students to get more than just a 90 percent for an A.
With similar platforms, the decision comes down to experience and dedication. Fry has won over the support of her peers in two years in the Senate, while Zucker was not even elected to his current seat. Fry has committed much of her time to serving the students of the University, and that dedication should continue.
Our View is the consensus of The Crimson White’s editorial board.
