Improving student involvement at Sacramento State was one of the main topics of conversation today in the Associated Students Inc. election debate.

Three candidates were scheduled to speak. Junior government major Michael Nguyen is the only candidate for director of social sciences & interdisciplinary sciences. Chad Gidel, a junior biology major, is the only candidate for director of business. Mohammad Farhad, the only applicant for director of engineering and computer science, did not attend for unknown reasons.

About 10 people watched as Nguyen and Gidel presented their stances on student involvement and improvements to their respective colleges and the university.

Gidel said one of the best ways to improve student involvement is to increase the voices of recreational sports organizations, Greek societies and individual departments. He also mentioned that students would be more likely to stay on campus with better facilities for athletic and recreational sports.

Nguyen agreed that building new facilities such as the Broad Athletic Facility and the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex would encourage more students to be involved in campus life.

Nguyen also said that required student advising may be needed.

“For freshmen and sophomores, transferring from high school to college is a hard transition,” he said. “We need to let students know that they can and will succeed.” Nguyen promised to address the proposed 10 percent student fee increase.

“Students will have to work more and will lose focus on academics,” he said.

Both candidates said more communication and advertising about ASI’s and the university’s activities is needed.

“I’ve been here for three years and I’ve only received 10 e-mails,” Gidel said. ASI should use more media resources, he said.

“Students shouldn’t have to spend all of their time searching for information about their campus,” Nguyen agreed.

The webcast of today’s debate and next week’s schedule of election debates is available on ASI’s website.

Jamie Gonzales can be reached [email protected]