Andrew Stern
Graduation Year: 2018 Major: Political Science Minor: Public Policy
Three words to describe you: Stern described himself as trustworthy, empathic, and reliable.
Someone who inspires you: His dad, he is someone Stern can look up to and wants to be like.
Plans after college: Stern plans to attend law school.
Leadership Style: He believes that there are certain things that you cannot do alone; it is necessary to be able to work as a group and says he intends to delegate to help others. He wants to inspire others to lead themselves.
UConn Involvement: Stern is an organizer and judge at UConn Moot Court where the purpose is to encourage and educate high school students on the application of Constitutional law. He is also a writer for UConn Undergraduate Political Review and a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi.
Best & worst thing about UConn: Stern said the best is the sense of community we feel and have on campus and that parking is a struggle in his opinion.
How did you get involved in student government?: Stern went to the involvement fair with his roommate at the time. His roommate happened to know that he wanted to get involved with USG and actually pushed him to the table where was encouraged to run for a position. Stern immediately knew he wanted to join.
What is the most challenging part about your involvement in USG & the most rewarding?: Stern said the most rewarding part of his involvement in USG must be seeing initiations that he has been working on work out and seeing changes in USG. Stern has worked with Community Standards to get hearings for students. A challenge for him has been learning to deal with different types of people but he appreciates the learning experience to grow his skills of working with others for best outcome.
What do you think are the most important qualities of a student body president?: Stern believes that they should be approachable, be active listeners, be proactive, have genuine leadership and inspire the student body, be a good voice to administration, meet with the town, the police, and administration, and establish good relationships to work on building up the community. He says they should also be down to earth, have open office hours, be able to attend events and encourage students to attend them, be welcoming and friendly, have good communication, and be smart about budgeting with student funds.
Ven Gopal
Graduation Year: 2018 Major: Economics & Political Science Minor: Spanish
Three words to describe you: Gopal described himself as social, un-athletic, and hard working.
Someone who inspires you: Someone Gopal is inspired by is Elon Musk.
Plans for after college: Gopal plans to work in public administration and work with a non-profit organization. He also plans to attend graduate school.
Leadership Style: Gopal said he works on being trusting of a group while leading and working with them. He wants to guide and assist, but not micromanage.
UConn Involvement: Gopal is a member of UConn’s Indian Students Association. He was also invited to host Asian Night for the Asian American Cultural Center and has also participated in several intramural leagues.
Best & worst thing about UConn: His favorite part about UConn is the fact that everyone can find a place within the communities on campus. He dislikes the new blended burger.
How did you get involved in student government?: Gopal was in student council during high school and knew he wanted to pursue it in college. He ran for a senate seat freshman year and when he won, he said it changed his life. It even encouraged him to change his major from biology to political science.
What is the most challenging part about your involvement in USG & the most rewarding?: Gopal describes the most rewarding part, beyond seeing change, as seeing how students appreciate changes being made and how the changes USG works for affect students’ everyday life. The difficult aspect of being in USG according to Gopal, is that within the organization, people tend to get politically minded. He believes that people need to try to depersonalize it and work for the UConn students.
What do you think are the most important qualities of a student body vice-president?: Gopal answered that they should make time to attend student meetings to really get to know students, be active on campus with more face to face interaction with students, and want to see what students are thinking. He also believes they should be approachable, make USG a comfortable place to go to, and make time for priorities.
Stern & Gopal
Why did you decide to run for USG president and vice president this semester?
The candidates said they want to create a significant change in the organization. They feel as if they are the best people to facilitate that by using their past experiences. They believe too much outside politics have been brought into USG and they want to change it. Stern and Gopal described that they have seen, firsthand, what works and what doesn’t and they understand what they can, and should, get done. They believe change can only happen when the internal organization works together and unites. Stern and Gopal want students to be able to come into the office to voice their opinions and for USG to become more approachable.
Why did you decide to pair up with your running mate?
They have known each other since freshman year. Stern and Gopal have built a friendship and know they have a good work relationship due to being part of USG for three years. They explained that they play off each other well and have a good partnership. Stern and Gopal both have experience that the other may not have much of so they balance one another out.
What are the issues you believe need to be addressed?
Stern and Gopal acknowledged that sexual assault is an issue on college campuses and they want to ensure a safe UConn community. Some clubs on campus mandate sexual assault prevention training, but they want to expand this to fraternity and sororities. Graduate students also take a mandatory sexual assault training, and while this will be expanding to juniors and seniors, Stern and Gopal believe that freshmen and sophomores should have to take this training as well due to the fact that fall semester of freshman year has the highest reported rates of sexual assault.
They want to work on community relations, such as issues with town & UConn police. They want to effectively take students’ concerns and work on them. They also worked on providing free menstruation products, which are currently getting put into three buildings: the Student Union, the gym, and the library. They want to push this initiation to more buildings. Stern and Gopal said they volunteered to place these products as they wanted to take steps to ensure it happens.
Stern and Gopal want to make sure that students reap the benefits of their student fee money. They explained that in the past, USG has been stingy with using this money. They want to encourage clubs to apply to get funding and make the process easier. Many clubs and students did not know that they may be eligible to obtain funding and they want to change that.
They also want to work on saving students money by working for affordable textbooks. Stern and Gopal worked with committees, starting their freshman year, to obtain open source textbooks for students. Open source textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty to assess their quality and can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at a low cost. An example of using open source textbooks at UConn has been general chemistry, which has three sections. In one year, students saved $6,000 in total.
Is there anything else you would like to add about your campaign?
Stern and Gopal replied that they will not make promises they know they cannot follow through on. They cannot lower tuition, but they want to try to save students money through open source textbooks. They cannot get rid of the parking rules and regulations, but they want to work on parking appeals for students. They explained that they want to focus on what the students are concerned about.
For more information on how to vote in the UConn USG election, visit Vote @ UConn’s website.
Photos provided by Andrew Stern and Ven Gopal