The two tickets to lead next year’s Allegheny Student Government faced off in a debate Tuesday night in Shafer Auditorium, answering questions ranging from dining issues to financial miscues to the campus climate.
Director of Finance Ella DeRose, ’27, and Senator Ray Colabawalla, ’25, are one ticket, while Director of Diversity and Inclusion Kaleialoha Froning, ’25, and Vice President Sam Ault, ’26, are the other. DeRose and Froning are running for president while Colabawalla and Ault are seeking the vice presidency.
The president represents students to the wider college community, while the vice president assists the president and presides over weekly General Assemblies.
The debate — moderated by Anna Westbrook, ’26, news editor for The Campus — saw both tickets agree on many issues, from holistic support of student organizations and enhancing transparency within ASG to the importance of financial reform.
Both tickets are replete with ASG experience; combined, they hold almost eight years of time in the organization, split evenly between both parties.

Opening statements
Each side had three minutes to present an opening statement. Froning highlighted her and Ault’s past experience with ASG, including their current stints as director of diversity and inclusion and vice president, respectively.
“Because of this experience, we have a good understanding of what it takes to be in these roles,” Froning said. “We have developed our platform with these connections and experiences functioning as our foundation.”
Froning and Ault’s platform focuses on three “strategic aims:” responsiveness and relationship-building, dining and food access initiatives and an increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
DeRose and Colabawalla have a different set of priorities: enhancing access to information about ASG, improving the club finance process and expanding mental health support.
“As a team, we are dedicated to transparent, realistic and immediate change for the good of our college,” DeRose said. “Before we move into this conversation, I’d like to reiterate our readiness to support Allegheny students in maximizing their time in college through redefined communication, unambiguous decision making, shared accountability and increased support for student engagement.”

Accessibility and Communications
One topic that resurfaced a few times was ASG’s accessibility to students. In response to a question about including student input on issues, DeRose said that, if elected, her administration intends to livestream the weekly GAs online.
“Students are involved in their own leadership, they’re involved in their own activities and not everyone can make a 7:30 meeting on Tuesday — but their voices deserve to be heard and they all carry the same weight and they should have access to this information,” DeRose said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, GAs were held over Google Meet to abide by public health restrictions. Once the meetings moved back to in-person events, GAs were livestreamed on ASG’s Facebook and YouTube pages and available on-demand once the meeting ended — though that practice ended at the start of this academic year.
Colabawalla also suggested occasionally moving the physical location of GA to more visible places. Currently, ASG holds its sessions in room 301/302 of the Henderson Campus Center.
“We understand that that room on the third floor isn’t everybody’s favorite, not everybody passes through that,” Colabawalla said. “And so we do intend on having maybe a GA or two in the CC Lobby, maybe a GA or two in Brooks — maybe not in the Brooks Dining hall, but the Brooks blue room.”
On the same question of student input, Froning said her past work as diversity and inclusion director involved soliciting and reaching out to students for their opinion. She added that ASG should make itself “more appealing to clubs.”
“Sometimes we seem like an entity that isn’t on the same level as the students, so really trying to reach out to everyone and come to them at their level,” Froning said. “Reach out to them individually, to clubs, and just make us more accessible as people.”
Another moderator question touched on similar themes of outreach, specifically asking the candidates how they would help clubs advertise their events.
DeRose said that her and Colabawalla were running on a “holistic approach to student involvement,” including re-examining how ASG uses the Engage platform.
“What it (Engage) is lacking is really that outreach to students,” DeRose said. “We intend to revamp the Instagram presence, the online presence, website, Engage, because these are the things students engage with frequently.”
Froning’s idea of holistic support was slightly different; she cited her own experience organizing events and said that ASG can help by assisting students with the entire event-planning process.
“Sometimes advertising becomes the last priority, because you’re just trying to make sure that you have an event to be advertised,” Froning said.

Finance and Club Support
In November of last year, ASG turned down its only candidate for the position of treasurer without discussion, instead voting to split the position into two seats: one director of finance, one director of the treasury. The decision left ASG without a treasurer for three months, before being filled by two senators.
Ault, who presided over finance discussions and briefly co-led the finance committee in an interim capacity was the first to respond to a question regarding ASG’s treasury position, which over fall and spring semester of this year saw a three-month vacancy.
“Of course, it was not ideal that we had such a long period of time without our treasurer,” Ault said. “It was rough.”
Ault added that they thought ASG “did the best we could at the time” given the empty seats on the cabinet.
“It did take a really long time but that is about the commitment to making sure you have people who are driven, be there,” Ault said. “It takes dedication, and you should not hurry that process.”
Ault also thanked Dean for Student Life Trae Yeckley for helping to maintain student finances in the interim.
DeRose shared her perspective of what she called “the whole debacle of finance” as one of two senators who stepped up to fill the redesigned finance positions.
“When that amendment came up, it was a consideration of something that would create lasting change, not an immediate solution,” DeRose said. “We all recognize that it was a difficult decision and it was never a personal decision — it’s making a decision based on the people you’re representing and the future of the organization that you’re a part of. Those solutions aren’t always easy, and they’re not always quick.”

DEI and Dining
The tickets also fielded a pair of questions on DEI. The first question asked about what each candidate would do to promote DEI on campus. Here, Froning said she would rely on her work over the past year as director of diversity and inclusion for ASG, and prioritize projects like adopting a land acknowledgement, offering DEI training to all student leaders and increasing disability visibility on campus.
“Just kind of continuing working with the people that I have been working with for the past year in these departments, as well as reaching out to new people, as well, people that haven’t been included in this conversation so far,” Froning said.
In his response, Colabawalla highlighted existing connections between ASG and the IDEAS Center, as well as Froning’s own work this year.
“So continuing that effort, continuing efforts that Kalei has begun and is maintaining in her current tenureship as director of DEI, as well as looking forward for new ways in which we can elevate DEI on campus,” Colabawalla said.
Specifically, Colabawalla identified improving the finance system as a way to support planning more events.
“We can work more specifically with CILC (Culture, Identity, & Leadership Coalition) clubs to sort of fast-track and make more efficient the financial requests,” Colabawalla said. “That ties in with one of our other platform ideas, is minimizing that finance form, making sure it’s clear and concise, and doing so helps not just the DEI clubs, but all clubs host events faster, quicker, easier.”
A question from a member of the audience asked why ASG has sponsored fewer and fewer meals for Muslim students in the month of Ramadan and why Aramark has never provided halal meat, meat permissible for Muslims to eat.
Ault — who said they had been involved in conversations about dining since they first arrived on campus — said the issue was less of one with
“I’ve had the halal meats conversation with our dining provider more times than I can count,” Ault said. “They cannot and will not do it here — or at least, that’s my impression.”
Ault added that they did not know why there had been a change in the number of meals funded.
“ASG sponsors things based off of requests made,” Ault said. “I don’t know if it’s because there’s an impression that ASG wouldn’t sponsor more, or not. I am unaware of anything limiting the amount of days that ASG would have sponsored food.”
For his part, Colabawalla said ASG may not be able to convince Aramark to provide halal meat options.
“That may be just that one rung above what ASG can actually impact and influence,” Colabawalla said, adding that the drop in Ramadan meals could be impacted by the financial system.
“If the financial requests are going to remain complicated, unclear, inconcise, then yeah, it’s going to make it a lot harder for the clubs, for the club Treasurer, all of which, who are students who — especially during the month of Ramadan — are students who are fasting,” Colabawalla said. “That does not make it easier.”

Closing statements
In his three-minute closing statement, Colabawalla asked the 30-odd students scattered across Shafer to think about what set the two tickets apart.
“ASG has been a core aspect of both our tenures here at Allegheny — so much so to the point where I am confident we will both continue regardless of what happens in this election,” Colabawalla said, referring to himself and DeRose. “But it is precisely because of that that we think we deserve your vote: It’s because we’ve got the best interest of ASG at heart, not a title or position in mind, and we want to really help change the student experience.”
For her ticket, Froning said that the way debate played out fit with her and Ault’s “Building Lasting Relationships” part of their campaign platform.
“I think this was a really really fruitful conversation,” Froning said in her closing statement. “I really do think this was a conversation more so than a debate, per se.”