Meet Dan Byrd, candidate for UConn Student Body President for the 2016-2017 academic year. Serving as a senator and an Executive Committee member of UConn Student Government (USG), he has already worked to enact positive changes for students. With this experience, he hopes to continue to find ways to better the UConn community.
Name: Dan Byrd
Year: Junior
Major: Political Science
Minor: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
How did you get involved with USG?
DB: I got involved with USG my freshmen year. I knew I wanted to do student government since I did it in high school. At the involvement fair, I went straight to the USG table and asked how to be involved. I decided to run for Senate, won the seat, and have been on Senate ever since. I’ve also been appointed to the Executive Committee as External Affairs Chair as well. I really got involved in the beginning because of my desire to serve the community.
What have you done on the Senate and on the Executive Committee so far?
DB: The number one issue I’ve dealt with over my three years at UConn is textbooks. I’ve really championed textbooks as a topic that is important to me and to all students. The average student pays about $1200 a year just on textbooks; we are finding ways to lower and even eliminate those costs. As a senator, I wrote legislation that created a University committee (Open Educational Resources Committee) that looks into how to get open source textbooks on this campus. Open source textbooks are free textbooks available online and in print that are published under an open license- anyone can access them, anytime. They have the accessibility of Wikipedia, but they are peer-reviewed textbooks.
One of our biggest goals was to get grant money for this Committee so that we can give mini grants to UConn professors so that they can start writing these books and set up workshops to show the value of open source textbooks. We actually just received a $100,000 grant from a non-profit organization and we will be using that money to get open source textbooks at UConn. In addition, through legislation I wrote, USG is funding a chemistry open source textbook which is going to save students anywhere from $400,000 to $800,000 over a five-year period. Once the textbooks are peer reviewed, they should be coming in next fall for introduction chemistry classes at UConn.
If you were elected president, which issues do you think are most important to address?
DB: I would say textbooks is one of the biggest issues because it’s a long-term project and as President, I would be able to press harder for open source textbooks on this campus. I also want to make sure that USG is continually fighting for money from the State to keep tuition low. Currently as External Affairs Chair, I’m in charge of lobbying the government on behalf of students. We’ve been dealing with the State Legislature as they have been reducing the funding to the University for the operational budget. As you may know, tuition is already going up- 31% in four years. But in the long term, if we can secure state funding, that problem won’t be exacerbated as much. As President, I also would want USG to continue its goal of diversity. USG is already a pretty diverse group, but we can always have more women, minorities, and students from various cultural centers. By getting more people with more diverse views involved with USG, we can be more representative of the student body. So I think those are three main goals- funding, textbooks, and diversity- that we’ll be working on over the next year.
What challenges do you foresee as president and how would you confront them?
DB: I think the biggest challenge is that you can never guess what will happen over the next year when you’re elected. As President, you have to quickly shift goals to deal with the unexpected and decide which issues to put aside to deal with the bigger issue at hand. So I think the greatest challenge is the unpredictability of the nature of student- administration relation and the state budget because you never know what’s going to happen.
Who is your running mate and how do you think she’ll contribute to your campaign?
DB: My running mate is Irma Valverde, an Executive Committee member (Student Development Chair) of USG as well. We create a great partnership because we know our executive experience, our working relationship with each other, and our drive to better our community will be best for the student body. She’s worked on so much already, has so many good ideas for the future, and I think she can really fulfill that role of Vice President really well. The Vice President looks more internally at how USG to be more diverse and how can we get a more inclusive environment for students to come in and share their ideas. As Student Development Chair now, that’s her job. The President looks more externally- dealings with the State and other groups. I think our skills in those areas really complement each other.
Why should students vote for you?
DB: People should vote for us not just because we have good ideas or can save students money, but really because Irma and I have a passion for this university that I don’t think I’ve seen in a lot of other students. Of course so many UConn students have great Husky passion between sports and organizations. Students go through their everyday life and live the university experience- learning so much and having a great time. But Irma and I have a special desire to better our community and leave it better than the way we found it. We want to make sure the students who come in and the freshmen class, who are going to be here for another three years, continue to have a better experience. Our drive to better our community is so important to us and that’s why we will make a good President and Vice President for the UConn student body.
How do you feel about beginning the campaign process?
DB: I’m excited about the next few months. It’s going to be tough because there are other people running who I’m going to have to debate with and all of them are my friends. But I do look forward to talking to students and hearing their ideas. We’re in the planning stages of campaigning now and we’ll talk to all sorts of student groups about their ideas, what they want from us, and what they think of our ideas. Our campaign is really going to be more about listening to students and what they want, more so than us running for President and Vice President. It’s going to be about making sure that student input is heard so that when we are elected, we can share those ideas with the administration and everybody else. But if we remain closed off and just our goal is to win, that’s not going to better the university. So the biggest thing is for us, in our campaign, is student input. If anyone is interested they can come talk to me and share their ideas.
Elections will be held March 2nd to March 4th and students can login with their Net ID to vote at vote.uconn.edu.
(Photos courtesy of Dan Byrd)