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Christian Giadolor ’21 M.A. ’22 and Cricket Bidleman ’21 MA. ’22 will lead the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) as president and vice president, respectively, following the election results released by the ASSU Elections Commission on Monday.
The two earned about 91% of the vote, with the remainder going to voters’ write-in options.
The ASSU executive race became uncontested in early April when the opposition’s vice presidential candidate dropped out, disqualifying their slate and leaving Giadolor and Bidleman the only viable candidates. Though last year’s race was also uncontested, the two were the first executive races since 1999 to include an unopposed slate.
“As we think about governing and empowering students to be the best advocates and activists and leaders for themselves, and for us to get the greatest experience we can from Stanford —and the work that entails, the work that we have to do for the ASSU — we now recognize the responsibility of that,” Giadolor said of his reflections on the election cycle and hopes for the future. “We’re very excited to work toward our agenda and our platform. So it’s a fantastic day, an exciting moment. Now I’m ready to get to work.”
Giadolor and Bidleman now have the opportunity to actualize the vision of their L.E.A.D. Stanford slate, which represents their values of love, empathy, advocacy and direction. Their priorities include developing strong relationships with administrators, centering disability advocacy and bridging the divide between the undergraduate and graduate populations.
As ASSU executives, they will lead and guide the priorities of the Executive Cabinet, which they are now forming through an application process that will be released through an all-campus email this week.
“We hope that people are excited to become part of our Executive Cabinet,” Bidleman said, adding that she and Giadolor have “some really exciting ideas coming up” and want the cabinet to be a productive and impactful component of the ASSU.
Though both Giadolor and Bidleman have held roles in the ASSU — he is a current member of the Constitutional Review Committee and she the communications director — this time is their first holding elected positions.
“We are steadily working toward understanding how this administration operates,” Giadolor said. “I think one of the things that’s going to define how we want to use our time as ASSU executives is to understand our relationship as students with the University, our relationship with faculty as students, the relationship of faculty to the University and to students, and understand the dynamics of what that really means and how the ASSU fits in that model and can best help them to serve students.”