The student government elections are upon us. Presumably, if you’re reading about this, you care about such things. If not, you should — the Students’ Association is the voice of the student body, and if the administration seems unresponsive to our student needs, it is in part because we have neglected to fully use this voice. This is, after all, the first time in several years that the Presidential election has been seriously contested.
Why should Vanessa Sanchez be our voice? She has consistently been a voice for students, separating real needs from frivolities. For too long the SA has been focused on small, tangible changes. It is tempting for student politicians to focus on easy, highly visible goals and avoid the risk of pushing for a large change that may not succeed. Sanchez certainly has experience with the former sort of routine work, having served on seven committees over three years and doing everything from rewriting club assessment guidelines to revising the student code of conduct. This past year, though, Sanchez has focused on much more important goals. These give her something to run on besides buzzwords and slick campaign videos.
Take, for example, the cancellation of bar busses. At first, this may sound like an inconvenient, but not serious, school policy. In fact, it is an important safety concern. Sanchez personally visited the fraternities, every Pan-Hellenic sorority, the Multicultural Greek Council, and the Interfraternity Council, to investigate the effects of this policy. She uncovered at least four separate instances in which cab drivers endangered or attempted to assault students travelling to and from bars. It is easy to dismiss candidates’ platforms as mere rhetoric, but when Sanchez says she is committed to campus safety, you know she really means it. This is why she and running mate Jessica Sands have been endorsed by the President of UR SEGway, the campus anti-rape and anti-sexual assault organization. Sanchez has also noticed how the banning of drinking games from campus parties, along with other restrictions, has pushed parties off-campus, where students lack access to MERT or the alcohol-safety training program SWARM. She has a two-pronged initiative to expand safety resources off campus while encouraging the administration to make the campus more amenable to safe partying.
Another one of Sanchez’s priorities is increasing communication between the student body and the SA. (It is worth noting that David Stark, the opposing VP candidate, is currently Communications chair.) Communication is a two-way street, and the SA has largely failed to effectively engage the student body. Even though SA meetings are theoretically public, most students do not know this, nor do they follow SA’s developments beyond The Weekly Buzz. Sanchez has several specific plans to change this: agendas will be publicized ahead of time and minutes will be available online promptly after meetings. Although Senate minutes are available now, they regularly exceed twenty pages per meeting. Sanchez will make sure that both concise summaries and the complete minutes are posted. Students will have an online forum in which to contribute their thoughts, and Sanchez and Sands plan to host regular office hours into which any student can walk, even without a prior appointment.
This emphasis on communication makes Sanchez and Sands the most in touch with student needs. For example, Sanchez has pushed for the administration to adopt a fixed-tuition policy so students with financial needs aren’t left in limbo every year. Even if unlikely to be implemented, this policy is orders of magnitude more important to pursue than building a smoothie bar, and that small possibility will become a lot larger if Sanchez and Sands win.
All the candidates in this election are certainly qualified, but qualifications alone are not decisive. I could have rattled off more minutae about Sanchez’s and Sands’ accomplishments, but I doubt too many students will change their vote based on, say, Sanchez’s success in securing a commitment from facilities to introduce more water fountains. Hopefully, students will use this contested election as an opportunity to make their voice heard by supporting the pair of candidates devoted to a deeper, more meaningful form of change.
Taylor is a member of
the class of 2015.
