Starting Sunday night, the campus was filling up with chalk advertisements, flyers, and Facebook campaigns. Julia and Erik were battling it out against Alex and Ronak for Northwestern’s new ASG President and Executive Vice President. Northwestern students received emails at 12am on April 9 inviting them to vote for the candidate they felt was most qualified to take on these roles and the results were announced at the weekly ASG Senate meeting on April 9. Julia Watson and Erik Zorn, both actively involved in ASG since their freshman years, won the election and Julia became the first female student body president in four years.
Although Northwestern students pride themselves on being informed citizens, we also are super heavily involved in 100 extra curriculars and are fighting to even do the readings for our discussions the next day. So to help you out, we’ve written a summary of the platform that Julia and Erik won with.
The premise of Julia and Erik’s campaign revolved around eight core values. Instead of orienting their campaign around their stance on some core issues, their team developed the things that they value in order to reflect their stances on a broader range of problems on campus and how these problems are connected. The eight values that they developed are Accessibility, Accountability, Advocacy, Collaboration, Engagement, Experience, Participation, and Responsibility.
As the campaign website states, “It’s time to redefine how we approach improving Northwestern and address the issues that affect our community.”
Under these eight values are specific actions that Erik and Julia feel passionately about enacting.
Accessibility:
· Increasing staff for Services for Students with Disabilities
· Summer Storage for International Students
· Gender Neutral Bathrooms on campus
· A North Campus Prayer Room (in Tech)
Accountability:
· Faculty and Administrator CTECs to be filled out by students who work closely with faculty and administrators but aren’t enrolled in their class
· Increased faculty training like Red Watch Band, Safe Space certification and QPR training.
Advocacy:
· Title IX Reform – increasing transparency within UHAS and SAHAS with consideration of third-party systems to support sexual harassment and assault survivors
· ‘We Will’ Capital Campaign – student involvement with Northwestern’s capital campaign
· Centralized Feedback Website – creating a space for all university feedback
Collaboration:
· Cross-council leadership training standards to ensure that members of each organization are Red Watch Band, QPR, Safe Space and diversity trained
· Creating incentives for cross-organization collaboration for programming
· A partnership between ASG and Entrepreneurial groups on campus to develop solutions for Northwestern’s internal problems
· Theater and Facilities Management collaboration to increase performance and rehearsal spaces on campus
Engagement:
· Improving SOFO so student groups can more easily access their budgets through online capabilities, improved contracts and hours, debit cards, and improved funding.
· Expanding resources for student groups through wildcard scanners, movable performance equipment, and improved relationships with Facilities Management
Experience:
· Improving the Shuttle System
· Improved meal plans – making the weekly 6 meal plan an option for on-campus upperclassmen, and partnering with Evanston restaurants to expand student dining options
· Student discounts at Chicago Museums
· Improving Tech Express through renovations to accommodate more students
· Class credit for extracurricular involvement
· More locations on campus for social activity.
Participation:
· ASG sponsored forums for students, student groups, and councils to analyze how they operate and improve their campus experience
· Increased student involvement with University committees
· A central website for Evanston volunteering opportunities
Responsibility:
· Supporting Mental Health Initiatives on campus through increased staff and QPR training for a certain percentage of faculty within each department
· A partnership between Wildside and Wildcat Watch (a peer run risk management service) to plan to reopen a safe student tailgate
· Campus-wide involvement for sustainability efforts
The newly elected representatives have big dreams for the future of Northwestern’s student body. Because of their long-term involvement with a wide array of student groups on campus, their platform was shaped in order to best address any issues that they discovered, but they are here to represent you. So, if you have any questions about the progress on any of these programs, reach out to them. Engage, just like their platform urges you to.
image from www.joinjuliaanderik.com