As the ASSU election season comes to an end, the campus can now breathe a collective sigh of relief.
After much e-mail spam from freshmen you have never met and countless Facebook ads, Campaign Week draws to a close tonight. Though the perennial alphabet soup of endorsements and seemingly identical platforms emerge every year, we hope our readers can take a step back and examine why six executive slates and thirty or more Senate candidates spend their time running for student government positions.
The Associated Students of Stanford University is the only student organization with formal access to University leadership, the administration and each of our more than 600 student groups on campus. At its best, the ASSU can create positive change on substantive issues in specific ways, while also helping to shape campus dialogue and the general campus climate.
Nearly every Senate candidate this year ran on a platform of increasing student voice, maintaining transparency and other ideals that he or she felt would resonate with most voters. And so the Editorial Board now challenges all those elected in this election to find ways to facilitate student participation in an open dialogue with the ASSU. The way in which a candidate campaigned says much about how they may serve, and we hope that all those who engaged peers genuinely and honestly will now serve in the ASSU in the same manner. Sometimes, however, some of those elected to represent students later seem to care little about the general well-being of the student population. To prevent this apathy in the coming ASSU, we hope that senators remember that true representation is not achieved by the donning of a title.
We also hope that the new ASSU executive officers will be forthcoming regarding not only their goals for the year, but in all areas of their progress, from cabinet selection to cooperation with the Senate. Please find ways for all students–not only those involved in the ASSU–to have more opportunities to influence University decision-making processes.
Most importantly, the Editorial Board challenges all those not involved in the ASSU to find ways to become connected, even if that just means staying informed and posing questions for those occupying ASSU offices. Funding is the most important and, at times, seemingly the only relevant role of the ASSU. Even so, the potential of our student government to improve the student experience could make engagement worth a bit of our time each week.