With less than a day left to garner the required 200 signatures to earn a spot on the spring general elections ballot, three slates have declared intent to run for ASSU Executive this year. The deadline to sign a petition for a potential slate, senator or special fees group is today at 4 p.m.
In addition, if each of the slate’s 300 signatories constitutes at least 100 undergraduate and 100 graduate students, that slate will be eligible for $500 in public financing.
The three groups currently listed on the ASSU Elections web site are Cruz & Macgregor-Dennis, Hertz-Coggeshall Family for Excellence and Tenzin-Vasquez.
Michael Cruz ’12 and Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ’13 have a combined total of five years of ASSU experience. Running as insiders of the ASSU, Cruz and Macgregor-Dennis think that their experience will help them reform and strengthen the ASSU.
Cruz is currently serving as the ASSU Vice President and Stewart Macgregor-Dennis is currently serving as the Senate Treasurer.
“For both of us, we’re very passionate about Stanford and very passionate about letting Stanford students do social change through their passions,” Cruz said. “[Stewart and I] knew each other in the Senate and really connected on a good level.”
The main focus of their campaign will be on empowering Stanford students to give back to the community in their own unique ways.
“Allowing people to give back in whatever way suits them best,” Macgregor-Dennis said. “Instead of encouraging people to give back in the ways we think are best, we want to broaden the idea of what ‘doing service’ means. We want to find people who are passionate about things and we want them to work with us on the big issues.”
When asked about the pay of senators and executives, the pair responded that they would definitely look into the issue.
“One of the things we want to maintain is the quality of opportunity and spirit of volunteerism and service,” said Macgregor-Dennis. “We want to make sure people are willing to give up their time far beyond what they are receiving.”
The other slate that has earned 300 signatures is that of Tenzin Seldon ’12 and Joe Vasquez ‘11, who announced their candidacy late Wednesday night. Seldon, a self-described “militant activist” for Tibetan rights and human rights in general, is currently serving as the Chair of the ASSU Diversity, Tolerance and Equality Team.
Seldon said she was compelled to run for ASSU Executive because she feels more can be done by the ASSU to help out Stanford students.
“I feel like the ASSU is the way to motivate and galvanize people on campus,” she said, “and I feel like that hasn’t been used to its full potential.”
One of the most important issues for Seldon is the mental health of Stanford students. The recent suicide of 22-year-old student Claire Roscow, with whom Seldon had formed a friendship during their collaboration through the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), deeply affected her.
“I feel like the environment here calls for us to be perfectionists and doesn’t always give us a chance to talk about real issues,” Seldon said. “I would work on broad changes, as well as concrete changes to promote mental health on campus.”
Another top issue for Seldon is the level of diversity and tolerance on Stanford campus. As a first-generation, low-income student, she sees more that Stanford could do to help students who need it. Seldon said she feels that Stanford sometimes lets these students down, and she hopes to engage the administration on such issues.
Seldon also said her running mate Vazquez will prove a valuable asset in the campaign if elected.
“I thought Joe really complemented a different set of visions,” said Seldon. “He had concrete, tangible ideas as to how to implement [improvements] to the Greek and social life on campus. He also has a lot of administrative and executive skills needed for this position, as do I, and having two leaders with administrative skills is a definite plus.”
Samuel Coggeshall ’12 and Alex Hertz ‘13 are running for president and vice-president on the slate traditionally backed by the Stanford Chaparral. At the time of publication, their petition had only garnered slightly over 100 signatures, well short of the 300 required to earn a spot on the ballot. Neither returned requests for comment.
With only three slates currently running for this year’s Executive, the current field is much less crowded than last year, which featured six slates. Stephen Trusheim ‘13, the ASSU Elections Commissioner, says that while it’s probably a little strange, “things like this have happened in the past.” Six slates ran in both the 2008 and 2010 elections; however, in 2009, only three slates were on the ballot.
Due to “extenuating circumstances,” the deadline to declare to run for the junior class slate and the Graduate Student Council (GSC) has been extended to Friday, March 18.