Peter Hans Kierstead – Candidate for Director of Community Affairs

Q: What is your platform?

A: “Mainly because the 50th anniversary of May 4 in 2020, there’s been an effort by some of the administration to marginalize Dr. Brian Hayashi’s project. Dr. Hayashi is a history professor who is trying to get money from the higher-ups Ohio Humanities Council to do his research, very important May 4 research, there are some people who don’t want all perspectives told. They just want one perspective told, they don’t want the black student movement perspective told or the perspective with respect to Asian history, they don’t want people who were witnesses to be in town, being interviewed and I don’t understand why. I think that’s something that the Undergraduate Student Government can help out Dr. Hayashi with this project because this is very important and we shouldn’t be ignoring any aspect of it. I want some pretty solid guarantees by the administration to student body because they handed over the email system to Google a few years ago and although we all like Google because they have fun products and stuff, their pretty abysmal about privacy and I want the KSU administration to guarantee to students that our emails are owned by us, it’s not like “here this is something you can use.” We are paying a lot of money to our tuition, we should own our emails and that our information is safe. There was a few years ago a problem a few years ago with social security numbers being accessed, some students were having their identity stolen. Things like that.”

Q: Why should people vote for you?

A: “The position I am running for is community affairs and so that’s the person who is in the Undergraduate Student Government who is sort of their connection to the city of Kent, government and community. I have lived in Kent almost my whole life, I went to high school here, I am already in the habit of going to city council meetings. I know all the councilmen on a first name basis. I know the city manager. I know the chief of police. My good friend’s aunt is the law director, I already know these people. I already know the people who run the City of Commerce. Just because I lived in Kent I know a lot of the business owners. I am very familiar with Kent the town. So if there is any sort of a problem or issue, say with the police, because every once and a while an issue will come up because there is a certain notion, the current Director of community affairs, he simplifies it by saying “Well the campus police likes students, the city police doesn’t like students.” So I think that is a rather simplistic view but there is some truth in that. But the thing is, if USG has a concern, I already know the chief of police. I already know the safety director and so that I think I am the best person for the position because I already know all of the people that I would be interacting with.”

Q: What changes are you looking to enact?

A: “It’s not much of a change as much as a one-time thing, obviously the May 4 issue and then the emails with some more solid guarantees there. I guess the change would student involvement in the student government. I think last time we only had 8% of the student body voted. If I get elected in, I want to make sure for the next election there’s more involvement. There’s some rules that I didn’t understand like you have to vote from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then it closes and then it opens again the next day at 8 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. and I don’t see why there isn’t a longer time to vote. I guess increasing more student participation in local government and the undergraduate student government.”