Trying to stand out in a sea of slogans, candidates for ASSU Undergraduate Senate are pooling their resources and forming groups to clinch votes on April 8. Two new coalitions have emerged this year, both hoping to garner votes based on shared ideals and experiences.

The notion of candidate coalitions, where students band together to campaign for Senate seats, is a relatively recent innovation. Although students endorsed by the longstanding Students of Color Coalition (SOCC) traditionally have been visible with their SOCC affiliation noted on campaign materials, running as a group was largely unprecedented until last year’s Students for a Better Stanford (SBS) came forward.

This year, Students United Now (SUN) has positioned itself as a coalition of 12 students with three shared policy goals.

SUN is composed of freshmen Stewart Macgregor-Dennis, Jason Lupatkin, Ed Negiar, Rebecca Sachs, Percia Safar, Rahul Sastry, Will Seaton, Bennett Siegel, Carolyn Simmons, Dan Thompson and Showly Wang and lone junior Nikola Milanovic. Seaton is a writer for The Daily; Milanovic is a columnist.

The group boasts a unified front on issues of student advocacy, transparency of the student group funding process and interfacing with University administrators to better address student needs.

Conceived midway through winter quarter, many of SUN’s members honed professional relationships through the ASSU as members of Frosh Council or in dorm government.

Meanwhile, the four masterminds behind Students with Experience (S.Ex.), a contending slate, are seeking to distinguish themselves from the pack of Senate hopefuls through their combined experience as upperclassmen.

Juniors Philip Bui and Danny Crichton, along with sophomores Andrew Jang and Miles Unterreiner, came together before the final petitions deadline to form the S.Ex. coalition. The four are among the few non-freshmen running for Senate; of the 39 Senate candidates on the ballot, 30 are freshmen.

Crichton, a columnist for The Daily, earlier threw his hat in the ring for ASSU executive with current senator Shelley Gao ’11, but abandoned his bid when Gao dropped out of the race.

Crichton then considered running for Senate. He said the coalition “formed organically” before petitions closed. The group eventually chose the name “S.Ex.” to bring some humor to the campaign.

“S.Ex. is a tool for us to get people’s attention and bring them in to talk about our real platform,” Bui said.

Pushing their class diversity and student experience, the members of S.Ex. want to represent the average Stanford student’s views.

The group staked itself as a moderate option between SUN and SOCC-endorsed candidates.

“What we’re trying to do is provide a third option for people — people who want the best ideas of SOCC and SBS or SUN,” said Unterreiner, who is also a contributing writer for The Daily.

SUN, by contrast, remains unapologetic about its overwhelming composition of freshman candidates, who see their “freshness” as more of an instrument than a handicap.

“We have the pros of being freshmen and being able to bring fresh ideas,” Wang said, suggesting that as relative newcomers to the University, SUN members are not yet “jaded.”

Crichton said SUN is of the same “lineage” as last year’s SBS coalition, to which eight current senators belonged last year.

SUN contends, however, that despite casual conversation with current senators involved in SBS, its motivations are fresh and entirely of its own.

The SUN coalition also said they do not oppose candidates endorsed by SOCC, despite implications made by S.Ex.

“To contrast us with SOCC is just to simplify the situation,” Lupatkin said.

“Our priorities are priorities that affect the student body as a whole, whereas their priorities are priorities that affect students of color,” said SUN member Thompson.

“It’s just a different approach — a different level of specificity,” he added.

According to Sachs, SUN made a “conscious decision” about a set of concrete issues they saw as most salient for the Senate’s agenda next year. Advocacy is at the forefront of that agenda, she said.

While SUN commends the current Senate on its efforts to improve campus sustainability and to cut its own salaries, coalition members said this year’s Senate has left much to be desired — particularly in Appropriations and communication.

“We hope that we can come in and fill that gap,” Safar said.

“We’re united with the same end goals in mind,” Lupatkin said, adding, “We’re all running together because we share this vision — we are in the unique position next year to work together and actually enhance student life.”