This year’s ASUCI student body presidential candidates are third-year international studies and public health policy student Alondra Arevalo, third-year political science student Austin Pierce and third-year business administration student Sahil Chekuri. New University spoke with the three candidates on what motivated them to run and the changes they would implement if elected.
According to the ASUCI Constitution, part of the role of the ASUCI president is to advocate on behalf of the student body and communicate their wants and needs to the university administration by attending meetings with campus administrators and advising policy decisions that impact campus climate. Additionally, the president serves as the chief officer of ASUCI and has the power to authorize budgetary expenditures and coordinate ASUCI business operations, including funding for student programs. The three candidates plan to use this role to enhance UCI’s responsiveness to student demands.
Arevalo said that if elected, one of her primary goals will be to inspire policy change in line with students’ needs — especially financial aid distribution, affordable parking and campus housing. According to her, ASUCI has neither cited enough evidence nor been consistent enough when communicating with officials who have control over these issues.
“You can’t just tiptoe around these problems,” Arevalo told New University. “It’s saying what’s happening in real life. And it’s saying, ‘This is bigger than you. This is bigger than this office. Students’ lives are being impacted by the consequences of your actions, and you’re affecting hundreds.’”
Neither the student body president nor the entirety of student government has the final say on what the university chooses to implement, but Arevalo believes there are ways to overcome this. Applied to the parking issue, for example, Arevalo said the budget provided by UCI Transportation and Distribution Services could be used to propose reallocations that are both beneficial for students and feasible to implement. Public meeting agendas would inform students of these proposals and ASUCI’s reasoning behind them.
Transparency is a prominent priority in Arevalo’s campaign, and she plans to push for it in university departments — particularly financial aid — and use her authority to enforce it within ASUCI.
“Making sure that they are being transparent about the issues that are happening and being held accountable is very important,” Arevelo said. “I want to have these meetings. I will be at their doorstep because I, too, need to know what happened. Not only was my financial aid delayed — like [the] majority of everybody’s was — it was a problem. People had to drop out. People lost their leases. People could not afford food.”
Avelaro is running alongside four other candidates — Harshvardhan Rathore for Internal Vice President, Jared Castaneda for External Vice President (EVP), Christopher Tan for Academic Affairs Vice President (AAVP) and Patrick Maranon for Student Services Vice President (SSVP) — through their student coalition, Anteater PACT. PACT stands for progress, advocacy and campus transparency.
Pierce has focused his campaign on improving students’ engagement with ASUCI. Pierce believes that the primary reason behind ASUCI’s ineffectiveness in triggering policy change is the lack of faith in and support for UCI’s student government and those elected to serve in it. He said that without engagement from the student body, concerns brought up by ASUCI will not be taken seriously by the administration.
“Our student government is the first line of defense being the U.S. administration,” Pierce told New University. “When we have 4% turnout, we lose all of the leverage that we would have had otherwise. We lose all of the negotiating power — the bargaining power.”
If elected, Pierce hopes to address the issue of under-engagement as the root cause of why the university is unresponsive to ASUCI advocacy. He believes this engagement would help solve issues including staffing and equipment for the Office of Financial Aid, as well as more effective communication between the office and students. On transportation, he aims to push for students to have their citations forgiven if they purchase a parking permit afterward.
Pierce also emphasized the role registered campus organizations (RCOs) play in increasing the engagement necessary to legitimize student government in the eyes of the university. RCOs, he said, are the main vehicle by which students interact with their university.
“I believe that our student government needs to reorient itself away from [engaging directly through] student government and instead say, ‘Engage through your clubs, and we will support your clubs indirectly through our government,’” Pierce said. “And I believe that by changing the relationship that students have to their government and their clubs — and the way that clubs have their relationship to our government — we can fundamentally change the way that students think about their government.”
Pierce is campaigning under Anteater Rising, which consists of Adam Weinberg for EVP and Ennes Kahf for At-Large Senator. The platform lists transportation costs, solving the financial aid crisis and reforming student government as its top priorities.
Chekuri spoke with students he met during his campaign and his time as the ASUCI mental health commissioner. According to Chekuri, shifting ASUCI from its lengthy and tedious processes to advocacy would allow him as president to build a student government that can “move at the speed of its people.” His campaign centers on the idea that student input should be prioritized over procedures that limit the efficiency of policy change.
“Every step that we take as an association should be based off what feedback we’re getting from students or what students want,” Chekuri told New University. “That is probably — is honestly — the easiest way to actually make a real change on campus.”
If elected, Chekuri aims to communicate with administrators about increasing funding toward campus organizations through the Student Programming Funding Board. He plans to make funding opportunities known to student organizations and increase the visibility of these clubs.
He also hopes that under his leadership, campus resources will become more available and widely known. One of these resources is the Anteater Safety Net Grant, which he hopes to allocate more funding toward and promote to potential recipients.
“I also come from the stance where we have so many resources on campus. While there may be [a] need to include more to support specific communities — specifically minority communities or underserved communities,” Chekuri said, “we can also take a look and work on enhancing the ones that exist rather than creating new ones or redundant ones.”
Chekuri is part of the student coalition ANTLeaders, and is running alongside Internal Vice President candidate Victory Ogbonnaya, AAVP candidate Summer Phan and SSVP candidate Jocelyn Aboufares.
Shortened versions of the candidates’ profiles can be found here. The last day to vote in the ASUCI elections is April 18.
Mariam Farag is a Features Staff Writer. She can be reached at msfarag@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon and Jaheem Conley.
