Allison discusses the current ASUU Presidential Election and the trends she's seen over the last few years.

Emma Ratkovic 0:05

Hello and welcome back to News For U. I'm your host, Emma Ratkovic joined with our producer Graham Jones. On this episode of the podcast news writer Allison Stuart will be joining us to discuss her recent coverage on the ASUU elections. Hi, Allison, thank you for joining us on this episode.

Allison Stuart 0:23

Hi there. Great to be here.

Emma Ratkovic 0:25

And Allison, do you want to introduce yourself and explain what you do for the Chrony?

Allison Stuart 0:31

Happy to. So I am a news desk contributor and writer. I have been working for the Chrony for three years now. And my last year of school. And as part of one of my beats, I have been the resident reporter on all things ASUU and election coverage. And so this is my third and final year covering it. It's been really great to kind of see how it's changed over the years.

Emma Ratkovic 0:52

Alright, we're happy to have you today on the podcast. So you recently wrote a couple of articles on the ASUU presidential election. Can you briefly describe each of the three tickets and what they're advocating for?

Allison Stuart 1:06

Yeah, I mean, I'll definitely go into more detail on like, what their platforms are once we you know, go through each ticket individually. But we've got three this year. First ticket is SET, which is an acronym composed of the three ticket members names, then we've got the Boyden ticket, as well as the Tsang ticket.

Emma Ratkovic 1:24

Alright, let's start off with the SET ticket. What are the names of the members running for this ticket?

Allison Stuart 1:29

Yeah, so each ticket, you know, as a whole has three members. And this one specifically, is composed of Milan Subotić, who is running for student body president. Then we have Keana Estorpe, who's running for vice president of student relations. And Aynaelyssya Thomas, who is running for vice president of University Relations. So each ticket not just this one has three people in there each running for these three specific positions. Something interesting about this ticket is that each of them currently works in ASUU at this moment in time. So Milan, he works as the current finance director. Keana works as the Equity Diversity and Inclusion director. And then on Aynaelyssya is an assembly rep for the Humanities college.

Emma Ratkovic 1:29

And what is their ticket slogan?

Allison Stuart 2:03

So the slogan they chose to run with this year is "set the course" basically what that means is doing all they can if elected to office to make things better, and kind of like set the path for any future student leaders and just ASUU and the University of Utah as a whole. So set the course.

Emma Ratkovic 2:37

And you mentioned that they have ABCs to go with their slogan, what are ABCs? And how do they use those to support their mission statement?

Allison Stuart 2:45

Yeah, so each ticket member has chosen a letter A, B, and C, and kind of picked something that they want to improve on within their platform and at the U. So like A for example, will start stand for accountability. And Aynaelyssya takes that one, so each team member, like I said, has one. B is for belonging with Estorpe, Keana leading that and then C is for Campus Safety led by Milan.

Emma Ratkovic 3:08

And what are the campus initiatives that they are focusing on?

Allison Stuart 3:11

So like within those ABCs, each person has chosen an initiative, like for accountability, looking into HRE issues, and lack of support, for RAs on campus, with belonging, just making sure all the students from different backgrounds feel safe and at home at the U. And then with campus safety, we all know there's been a lot of recent protests on campus. And, you know, subsequent police responses to them. And other initiatives that I think is important to mention are like supporting transgender students on campus, making ASUU more accessible to like the general student, and just working to help with parking issues. I think that's something each ticket touched on. Clearly a big issue that everyone has their eye on.

Emma Ratkovic 3:57

And do you have any final thoughts about the SET ticket and what they're advocating for?

Allison Stuart 4:02

I'll say with every ticket, I really enjoyed getting to know all of them. I think SET ticket specifically has very strong initiatives that I think encompass a lot of corners of campus. I feel like they are very rounded with that. And I'm excited to see what they do if elected to office. But yeah, I've really enjoyed getting to know them.

Emma Ratkovic 4:20

Awesome. Aynaelyssya Thomas and Keana Estorpe has recorded a snippet of the SET ticket and what each member is advocating for.

Emma Ratkovic 4:29

Today we're meeting with the SET ticket who features Keana Estorpe and Aynaelyssya Thomas, as well as Milan Subotić. And they're just going to talk about what they're advocating for and why you should vote for them.

Aynaelyssya Thomas 4:42

Hi, I'm Aynaelyssya Thomas. I'm running for the Vice President of University Relations on the SET ticket.

Keana Estorpe 4:48

Hi, I'm Keana Estorpe and I'm running for the Vice President of Student Relations on the SET ticket.

Aynaelyssya Thomas 4:55

We are focusing on three main features: accountability, belonging and campus safety, how we split up the task is kind of each of us has taken a feature that we really care about. So I'm doing accountability.

Keana Estorpe 5:06

And I'm doing belonging, and Milan is doing campus safety.

Aynaelyssya Thomas 5:09

Each one of these are really dear to our own hearts and a lot of our personal feelings, and just experiences at the you go into why we wanted to take this on. I personally have done a lot of work in accountability, both in my current role in ASUU as an assembly representative, but also in other areas that I'm involved in on campus. And it's just something that has been near and dear to me. And I've worked with a ton of administration to voiced independence and let students have a voice on campus.

Keana Estorpe 5:39

And I'm doing belonging because for our ticket, we have a lot of personal experiences with the U. None of us really went into the U fully knowing what to expect. Milan and I are immigrants. And we all are first generation students. And we kind of came into the U trying to figure out our own footing. And because of our experiences here through ASUU, UPC, ambassadors, things like that we have really found a sense of belonging here. But we also can acknowledge that that isn't the case for all students. And we want to help ensure that we fully celebrate the diversity that we see here on our campus, whether that's an identities, communities and the values that are found here. And I think that the overarching thing for Milan would be in Campus Safety also works with Aynaelyssya's pillar, which is accountability, because our school has had some major cases. And those cases aren't just cases, they're real people behind it. And we want to work towards getting those light walks, while also making sure that we connect that bridge into making the ADA requirements better and things like that. And just ensuring that our campus as it grows, continues to care about campus safety and evolves with it.

Emma Ratkovic 6:47

Okay, do you want to talk a little bit about the policies and initiatives that you want to take action on?

Aynaelyssya Thomas 6:53

Yeah, so there's a couple that we've really prioritize one of them being graduate students, I have talked to a multitude of graduate students and just gotten their feelings because obviously, I'm undergrad, our whole ticket is undergrad, we can't speak for graduate students, because we haven't lived their experiences. But we want to work with them and talk to them to try to understand what they're going through and what like their day to day life is like as a grad student, so that way we can best advocate for them. So this includes talking to the graduate professional Council and working with them on their goals of kind of restructuring ASUU to allow for more graduate students, but also to just trying to make the whole campus community more graduate inclusive, that's a huge priority to us, because we've really, really wanted to get more people involved, even if it's not just graduate students, but also like, minorities on campus and affinity groups. And I think Kiana can talk a lot on that.

Keana Estorpe 7:49

Yeah, so one of the biggest things for us is that since we're a ticket with all ASUU members, we've had the time to really ruminate about the structure of ASUU, to one appreciate it, but also recognize, hey, like, there are these actions that we would have done differently, or we can build upon them. And so the whole sense of belonging is just us wanting to kind of strengthen that foundation of ASUU. And kind of re envision it in a view of seeing ASUU as a true student government, we get paid Student Success fees, which comes out of everyone's own wallets. And we really want to recognize the privilege that comes with that, because ASUU has so much money, we also get so many resources and so much support. And with that comes a platform for us to use to help support those affinity groups, those student organizations, clubs, and I feel like that truly trickles down into individuals. Graduate students are just a huge bunch of us, the University of Utah is an R1 Institute. And we're trying to get our numbers up in terms of the number of students and we can't neglect just one group the same way we won't be we shouldn't neglect a community itself. So really working at and making sure that we make ASUU, somewhere where other students can come to that organizations can get money. And also making sure that we acknowledge that we don't want to overlap events, we want to make sure that if one event that we're already hosting is similar to another one, why not just focus our attention and support into an event made by an organization. So a lot of it is just making sure that we're intentional, and we aren't assuming what everyone needs. So we're looking into making an adhoc committee with affinity groups and other students so that they can come in and use their voices and let us hear it because we, we can't speak for everyone's experiences, we can only speak from ours. And I feel like that will help connect a lot of the students and then also making sure that we are very accountable with the money and the finances. Since Milan is the current director of the Finance Board, he really sees all the nooks and crannies of where money can kind of fall through the cracks and we want to work and make sure that money is used in the right ways. And that just looks like making sure we reallocate Maybe we have to bundle some money into other ports instead of just the campus events board, or just trying to look at maybe we don't need these bigger performers. Maybe we need something that's more leveled with our students, because those smaller events are what's going to get students because they're more intimate and they can make more connections. And that's how you can make the university more interconnected and have less problems, especially since it's such a very delicate climate, especially with all the things like MECHA and CESB, we really want to acknowledge that we can be there to support them.

Milans main priorities are really campus safety and redirecting some of the funds in ASUU towards more student resources such as scholarships, a graduate travel scholarship, and just more resource scholarships for students that are struggling to go through college. Because I think every one of us on this ticket understands what it's like to financially struggle to get through college, at one point or another. And Milan really also does care. He does understand the finances of ASUU and he's super passionate about it. Another thing that he really wants to work on is trying to expand Safe Ride on campus that just plays entirely into campus safety, currently safer, doesn't go down to Greek row, or go down to the landing where a ton of students are all the time, and it doesn't operate on the weekends. Social Life shuts down on this campus on the weekends. And if we want to continue growing, and we want to continue being the number one university in the West, then we do have to adjust with that climate and expanding SafeRide is one of the ways to do it.

Well, like I'm curious, like, based on like Aynaelyssya your housing and like residential education work that you did on the investigative desk? Are you implementing any changes into that or for that?

Yeah, I really do care about that. That was a huge struggle for me. Like, those articles were very mentally taxing in the sense that it was a lot of material. And it was personal students and like their lives and what they had gone through. And that was really hard for me to like, listen, and write all of it, because I do care so much about other people. So I really do want to use this position to continue helping RAs and to continue helping CA's and SJs. With housing. Honestly, university relations would allow me to work directly with housing, and for them to respond to me and us to create a relationship where I can best advocate for students needs in housing and those student leaders and help them get forward and make changes in housing.

Awesome. And then I'm wondering Keana, so I'm wondering, like how you said in the beginning, you and Milan are both immigrants. So first of all, where are you guys from?

So I am actually from the Philippines and my family is kind of originates from Hawaii. So we moved from Hawaii and Milan is from Croatia, he actually he moved here so much more recently than me. Okay, seven years ago, I believe. So it's definitely a big experience, because I think he moved from Croatia straight to Lehigh here in Utah, which is very different. Yeah.

Do you know anything about like, the new legislation that's passing? And like, how like DEI enforcement? Do you know anything about that?

I actually do. I'm currently the Equity Diversity and Inclusion director for ASUU as well as I was previously serving as a social justice advocate.

Okay. So do you think that how do you think like that new legislation will impact how you enforce these like, like diversity and equity, things that you're trying to do?

Think the new legislation, I personally find it a shame, I don't think that we should be villainizing diversity and equity, it doesn't mean that we're trying to pull other people down. I think equity just shows that some of us are different steps and others isn't. We're just trying to help others pass that finish line as well. I think that if I were to if we were to win our ticket, we would really work around looking at that legislation properly studying it, because yes, DEI is going to look different. But that also means that if you do truly care, you can find loopholes anywhere. And changing the name of something doesn't matter if there is intent behind it that actually does impactful change. I don't know what it's going to look like for ASUU to have DEI on it. But I do want to firmly stand on still having those values and still looking into it and also working with the school administration, because they're the ones who can truly make those changes and also make sure that ensure that they are still here to stay because if we're having major campus events and we're having people like Sway Lee come in, we also should be caring about the individual identities of all students, we can't be this big university and make different ethnicities and identities feel like they aren't welcome here. Otherwise, it's just not going to be a safe campus for anyone. And I think that truly bleeds through into our academics or professional lives and things like that. Everything the university does reflect on all of us, because once you graduate, this is what's going to be on our resume. And I want to be someone who's proud of what our university has stood for. And if not, then be someone who's proud for what I stood for in the positions that I've had the privilege to serve in.

Okay and onto the next ticket up next, we have the Tsang ticket. Allison, what are the names of the members running for this ticket? And where did the name derive from?

Pretty Simply. A lot of the time in the past tickets are named after the person running for the president. So this ticket comes from Tsang, which is Brendan Tsang so he's running for the student body president position. Also on this ticket we have Areesha Nazir, and she is running for vice president of University Relations. And then we also have Humzah Khan and he's running for vice president of student relations.

And are they already, you said that SET ticket is the only group that is in ASUU currently, right?

That is correct, at least with each ticket member, currently an ASUU. So in this ticket, Brendan Tsang he has previously served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for ASUU. So he's definitely got some experience with ASUU as a whole and knowledge in that realm.

And what is their ticket slogan?

Their slogan is "think pink". Areesha explained to me that it's kind of to be memorable. They that's their like, their ticket color, which I think is great. I'm currently wearing pink. But I know she mentioned she wanted to be memorable and help them stand out to the student body.

And what campus initiatives are they focusing on?

I know the biggest one they're looking at is amplification of student voices of the U. And within that includes sustainability, safety on campus, they want to create more inclusion for campus life. And then transportation, like I mentioned earlier with the parking. Another thing that I thought was interesting that they're focusing on is like, quote, unquote, the ASUU bubble, where students sometimes see that as unaccessible club or platform that not a lot of people know a lot about and it seems like it's out of the reach for normal students. So they want to make it more accessible to normal students and to advocate for them better.

Alright, do you have any final thoughts about the same ticket and what they're advocating for?

I am inclined to say I'm especially looking into the ASUU bubble claim that I heard, I think it's really interesting, and I think it holds some truth. A lot of students don't know that much about ASUU kind of just seems like whatever you're just like playing student government, I think that you can do meaningful change within ASUU. And so I think that their initiative to address that could be really good thing for future students at the U and current ones to feel more supported by their student government and to know that they do have a tangible effect on the average students experience.

I love that. The Tsang ticket has recorded a message to let us know what they're advocating for.

Hello, everyone, my name is Brendan Tsang. I'm a first generation college student in my third year studying operations supply chain and information systems. I'm from Sandy, Utah and I'm running for your student body president on the Tsang ticket, alongside my vice president's Areesha Nazir and Humzah Khan. Our ticket encompasses three missions: reclaiming campus, uniting community and empowering change. Reclaim campus, we noticed a big disconnect with ASUU and the student body. Ultimately, we want to bridge the gaps between the administration and ASUU and the student body. ASUU and red book has been really inaccessible and complicated over the years, and we want to work on restructuring ASUU and turning it into a resource for all students. Unite community. We want to foster an atmosphere of understanding and collaboration where we want to ensure an inclusive environment for all student groups and equal opportunity for all. We want to make sure that all students get the resources they need in order to be successful after U. Empower change. We want to amplify student voices and allow students to be involved with the transformation process and ensure representation for all students. We have some great initiatives under Transportation and Parking, safety, sustainability, inclusivity and campus life. For Transportation and Parking, we want to work with UTA in order to educate people on how to utilize their public transportation systems. We want UTA redline to come more often and to combat parking. We want to change pay for parking lots to 30 minute increments instead of one hour, as people are paying for additional unnecessary time. Another thing is change U after 3pm lots to U after 2pm. With all freshmen guaranteed housing next year, we want freshmen students who live on campus to submit an appeal to have a car on campus. We also want to input a more efficient shuttle routes for those people who are living on campus. For safety, we want to work with safe ride to expand their services. We want to extend their operating hours that ended at 12:30am to 2am. We want to extend it through the weekends, but also extended two mile radius where many University of Utah students live to be able to utilize Safe Ride late at night. When safe ride isn't available, we want students to be able to contact campus security for rides with a simple three digit code for non emergency resources. For sustainability, we want to create a composting system for food waste that dining halls, where it will go towards resources such as the edible gardens. We also want to implement a system where leftover meals from dining halls go toward food pantries such as the feed you pantry, but also being able to donate meal swipes and removing the guests swipe to a swipe is a swipe system. For inclusivity, we want to be transparent from the get go. We want to create students forums and forums where students can reach out to us and tell us what's going on within their respective communities. We will also not be afraid to address what's going on immediately. And finally, campus life. We want to transform campus into a walkable city by introducing services centers for services that students generally need to leave campus for, such as barbershops, nail salons, groceries or place to get fresh produce, but also implement 24/7 study areas and food options and extend the Student Life Center hours to 11pm. As a ticket, we want all students who come to the university to have a successful time, we want to ensure that all students feel that they belong and they get the support and the resources they need in order to be successful. As a ticket who has reached many different areas on campus, including Greek life, orientation, UPC, affinity organizations, ASUU, and more. We want to ensure that we're impacting all communities here at the U through our network, knowledge and experience during our past couple of years here. We are a ticket that will be present during our candidacy and want to ensure the groups, clubs and organizations all get the proper support that they need from ASUU. We want to ensure that students know and understand what ASUU does transparency through the use of our social network channels and holding ourselves accountable. We want to amplify Student Voices by creating student forums and forums where students could reach out to us about certain conflicts and opinions surrounding the university. Thank you so much for listening to me talk. Remember vote Tsang and think pink. Thank you.

The last ticket is the Boyden ticket. Allison, what are the names of the members running for this ticket? And where did the name derive from?

Yep, so the Boyden name comes from Joe Boyden, who is running for student body president. Pretty simple right there. Also on the ticket is Paige Moon who is running for vice president of University Relations. And then Ty Nishikawa, who is running for vice president of student relations,

And what is their ticket slogan?

Yes, their slogan is "Be bold with Boyden". Joe explained to me that as a ticket, they want to make some bold claims and have bold initiatives. They're not afraid to stand up and make real change on campus. So being bold with Boyden is a way to make that clear. Something I really wanted to mention though, is that Boyden does currently serve on ASUU. He is the Associate Director for campus events board, so he works with that kind of facet of them.

What campus initiatives are they focusing on?

One thing that they really highlighted to me was changing the quote on quote, "social scene" at the University of Utah. I know Boyden said that in his own experience, there's like pockets of events to meet other students, but nothing like dedicated and streamlined to make that process easier. It's kind of like scattered and, you know, not quite there. And they really want to condense that to make that more easy.

And you mentioned that the boarding ticket will have three pillars that they will focus on if they're elected, what are these three pillars?

These pillars are culture, connection, safety, and within those three pillars, they want to build better culture within campus and then just Salt Lake in general, as well as creating connections with other students and then just general safety initiatives. I know Moon mentioned that she wanted to make sure students were safe on campus like introducing some more lighting and more parking lots, you know, for people walking at night. And she also talked about promoting free STI clinics that we do have here that she says not a lot of people know about and wants to make that more accessible to students by advocating it more.

And do you have any final thoughts about the Boyden ticket and what they're advocating for?

I mean, I enjoyed interviewing Boyden ticket. But I have no further comment on that.

Unfortunately, the Boyden ticket did not send any recording to our team after being asked if they would like to participate so we will now be moving onto some general questions. Alison, you have overseen a few of the past years ASUU elections? What are some similarities and differences that you noticed between past years ASUU debates and this year's elections?

Yeah, I mean, this is my third election cycle. Like I mentioned, I've definitely seen some unique ticket some that got similar backgrounds this year, I would say it's different in that each ticket has a woman on it, which I think is really great. I love seeing that involvement. I am also impressed with the SET ticket out of the three members currently working with an ASUU you can really tell that they understand those processes. And not that you can't learn but definitely helps you get that leg up and understand more of the bureaucracy and dealing with university officials, all that good stuff. Something else that I've noticed, you know, as I've seen different tickets come and go is that there's usually a stereotypical Greek Life ticket. And I see that this year in the Boyden ticket. We saw it last year and the O'Leary ticket. I'm really interested to see how voting shakes out this year. Since you know, Greek life is a very strong presence on campus. I'm interested to see how the voting with that will go. I know last year, there were very few students who did participate in voting. My hope is that this year, we will see more students participate. I mean, I pulled the statistics from last year's elections results. And it said that the total votes votes cast, like for the elections was only 4449, which equates to just 13% of the Utah student body. I mean, how many students we have like 38,000. It's a sizable amount. So I'm hoping that we will get more student involvement. And I believe last year, they said it was like an improvement. So it's, it's historically been very low, which is discouraging, because as a news writer, I feel like there's a lot of value in promoting student government and encouraging that on our campus to make that change. And I just hope students will know more about it, you know, through these stories, and this podcast, and just in general. I will say that I do feel like some tickets do have stronger platforms and others. But overall, I have been pleased with what the tickets are aiming to do on campus next year. And I will say all three of the tickets do focus on students above all else, which I think is you know, what this is all is all about.

And based on your coverage of ASUU debates and your personal experience as a student, what steps do you think the presidents of the student body and the institution should take to create a more cohesive community?

I think there's been steps in the right direction for this. But I think that there should be designated meetings or like events to meet your student body presidency. I think there's been somewhat of that. But I think next year, after whoever, you know, wins this election is in office, there should be like a designated meeting time where students if they're interested and willing to participate, they can come and ask questions, and perhaps like a roundtable discussion or some kind of forum, I think that could be really good. And connecting people of different backgrounds. Again, there will always be people who are uninterested. And it's like that with any initiative on campus. But I think that would create a more cohesive community, I think they should also be very clear about where they stand on specific issues. So there is no confusion or misinformation spreading around. But yeah, I have seen some steps in the right direction, I'm really interested to see whichever to get, you know, enters office next year, just how they enact that and make that part of their platform.

What effect is Greek life have on ASUU elections? And does this usually affect the outcome?

For sure, I mean, like I mentioned earlier, Greek life is a big presence on campus, whether you like it or not. I would say that sometimes when there is that Greek Life ticket that, you know, you could say quote on quote, is very stereotypical. Often, those Greek Life votes kind of strong arm the election. I just encourage, you know, other student groups and other people on campus to get involved and vote. Not saying that Greek life is necessarily voting wrong, or, you know, swaying the election one way or another, but I think sometimes the votes are disproportional when there is like that Greek Life ticket.

Do you believe that there should be any changes made to the ASUU election cycle?

That's a good question. I am not a bureaucrat, I am not someone who's, you know, super into politics, you know, in that way, I don't have all the answers, I would say something I would probably do that I think could be most feasible to implement, would just be a more forceful way to get students participate. Like advertisements. One idea that I have is to like, put a banner on top of Canvas. And if you've ever seen that before, like on the homepage, you can, of course clear it out. But I've seen it with like programs like the basic needs collector, which is great. I'm glad that we're getting that recognition. I've written a couple stories about them as well. But I think we could do something like that with ASUU elections be like, hey, just, you know, this is going on, in case you didn't know because like, you know, voting is only up and so on. Vote, please like, please vote. And leave that as an option. I think that would be great. But as far as like voting as a whole, not much else to say,

When did the elections take place? And how can students votes?

So the voting will open February 26th. So just a couple days away, it opens right at 7am. Mountain Time, of course. And it will be open and running through the 29th, February 29th. Leap Day at 12pm. So until noon on that day. If you are interested in casting a vote this election cycle, just go to the ASUU website should have more details. I also believe you do get an email in your inbox for your student email.

Awesome. And Allison, do you have any final thoughts or comments?

I think I've been pretty clear. I mean, I encourage all students to vote, I hope you learned a little bit about these tickets running and hopefully gives you a little bit more insight into what their platforms are and what they stand for. For more encompassing look. Feel free to go to the Daily Utah Chronicle website. You can find my stories, I've written an in depth one for each ticket, where you can get all the details about the ticket member's background, initiatives, and of course, when and how to vote. But thank you for having me.

Yeah, thank you for joining us. And I'm your host, Emma Ratkovic. And thank you for joining us on this episode of News for U. Make sure to watch out for upcoming episodes.