The crowded senate race grew ever tighter during Tuesday night’s debate, which featured 10 candidates vying for five contested seats.

Additionally, two candidates are running for arts senator, one less than needed to fill the senate, and a science senator is running unopposed.

Each of the 13 candidates answered questions about the biggest concerns faced by their respective college and the steps they would take to resolve those issues.

Sophomore Rebecca Rose, seeking her first term in office as a commerce and finance senator, called job placement after graduation the biggest issue facing the members of her class. Rose said she would improve alumni relations and establish a database for students to reference when seeking a job.

Juniors Joonsup Park and Timothy Batsche echoed her plan, pointing out that these alumni fund the programs and allow for more technological innovations to become reality.

Another issue of great concern to commerce and finance candidates was that surrounding Dean Thomas Monahan’s upcoming departure. Incumbent senator Garrett Bastable pledged to help the new dean get acquainted with the students and promised to act as a liaison to get the dean acquainted more quickly.

Junior Christopher Guild and sophomore Negar Jahanbin ended the first round of questioning for commerce and finance by criticizing their opponents for looking too far ahead, looking to issues such as improvement of writing skills and increasing class availability.

The engineering candidate picked up where the business candidates left off. On the issue of class availability, junior Abe Hurdle decried the lack of variety in classes offered. Hurdle said class times for engineering students generally consist of 8:30 a.m. sessions and huge breaks, which doesn’t allow for flexibility. Hurdle hopes to offer classes at later times so students can take advantage of events on campus.

Hurdle also said he wants to bring televisions into Holy Grounds and improve technology in CEER.

“[The printers] seem to break every night,” he said.

“When you’re in a building for a good chunk of your day, it helps a lot when you can get the work done that you need.”

Class availability was also the focus of the nursing candidates. Sophomore Barbara Burke called attention to the competition for class space for the students. “We share a building with a dorm, a cafeteria, a mailroom and a gym,” Burke said.

Burke called for more space as well as a reduction of costs in order to foster a better environment for the nurses to function.

“We are tightly packed into five classrooms, one of which is a trailer, and still have to pay the same tuition as everyone else, as well as pay for transportation to and from clinicals.”

Freshman Nicole Pierre also felt that a voice needed to be given to the freshman and sophomore classes, which are currently not represented in the nursing senate.

Engineering candidate Marco Napoletano was not at the debate.