The Students First Party wants to win students’ votes on election day and rule the Student Senate, so it can continue to keep students first in Student Government and implement more programs.

The Students First Party members are Hugh O’Hara, for student body president, Jessica Catto for vice president for academic affairs, Jen Fanthrope for vice president for financial affairs, Marty Ruhaak for vice president for public affairs and Yve Williams for vice president for student affairs.

The name “Students First” derived from the desire to keep students first in all decisions of the university, O’Hara said.

His party has several goals, including working for frozen tuition for all new students, implementing a CARPOOL program, establishing co-curricular transcripts, offering an incentives program to Recognized Student Organizations and strengthening the relationship between the university and the city.

The frozen tuition system would freeze students’ tuition, so the price they paid the first year they attended Eastern would remain the same all four years, O’Hara said.

“That way you’d know what your tuition was each and every year,” O’Hara said.

The CARPOOL program would consist of student volunteers who, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, would drive around and give students rides homes from bars, parties and anywhere they might be at where they are not comfortable, O’Hara said.

He said he would look for outside funding for the program, so student fees do not rise.

He believes having co-curricular transcripts that include a list of all activities students were involved in instead of just students’ grades is important because then students would have an official statement from the university to show how well-rounded they were.

As another way to get more students involved in campus issues, the Students’ First Party wants to offer incentives for RSOs that send members to forums, the RSO Council and other events. He wants to get outside donations, if possible, to offer a prize to the RSO that has gone to the most events by the end of the year.

He wants to continue to mix the students with Charleston residents. “This year, we’ve made good strives at doing that,” he said.

Involving students in the planning and promotion of events such as Oktoberfest and Diversity on the Square should help get students to participate more, he said.

O’Hara said his main priority was to work on ending student apathy. “(Student apathy) is such a monstrous task,” he said. O’Hara said no one thing could end student apathy, but he hopes that all of their goals combined would be able to handle the task.

O’Hara said he should be student body president because he has the three main qualities a president needs.

“I have the ideas, and I have the experience,” O’Hara said. “I believe a lot of what the president does is react to things that come up during the year, and I think I can do that better than anyone else.”

He said his party members also are the best people for the jobs because of their experience and work ethic.

Student government elections will be held April 17 and 18.