If elected, Adam Rawlins, a write-in candidate for the position of vice president of Academic Affairs, said he would work to make a degree from the University as valuable as he could.

“The basic reason anyone comes to this University is for an education, and we need to ensure that people’s degrees are actually worth something when they graduate,” Rawlins said. “Unless we’re able to insure that their degrees are actually worth something, unless a degree from the University of Alabama says that a person is highly education and should be hired, then we’re just not doing our job.”

Rawlins said the biggest issue facing the University today is the difficulty involved in finding jobs after graduation. He added that it wasn’t necessarily an in-house issue, but still needed to be addressed as best as possible.

Rawlins also described several steps he would take in office to better the experience of getting an education at the University, including an expansion of Spring 2 and Fall 2 classes, expanding tutoring programs on campus and the facilities that house them and looking into winter course options.

He campaigned on transparency and admitted that most candidates do, but he said most members of SGA did so only until elected and then failed to change anything.

“Everybody says transparency and openness, and I’ve heard that for the past three years, but no one’s actually done anything.” Rawlins said. “I’d like to actually do something about it.”

Rawlins said he was not a Machine candidate and had never been endorsed or supported by the group, but he also said he did not oppose the group’s existence or voting power.

“Personally, I don’t care that it exists,” he said. “I do care that it is a block that coerces groups of students to vote a certain way and threatens to punish those students if they deviate from that”