ASVP for Governmental Affairs
Hunter Eider
Hunter Eider wants to prioritize mental health counseling for students.
“People are waiting two or three weeks to get counseling appointments,” said Eider. “I don’t think it’s okay.”
He said he hopes that more funding would mean being able to hire more counselors of color.
Eider also wants to push for workshops, to teach people how to write proposals for Washington Student Association meetings, where members of student governments convene from all over the state to ask other attendees to support their cause, and to bring to the Legislative Affairs Council.
For the 2017-19 year, Eider has been the ASVP for Academic Affairs, and understands what the internal structure of governance within Western looks like. This will especially help with Ethnic Studies, said Eider, “and help lobby for legislation to create funding for an Ethnic Studies Major or Program.“
“Often with these positions and their nature, you need a couple of months to learn about stuff before you can start doing stuff,” said Eider. “The fact that I already have that training last year means I can hit the ground running.”
Natasha Hessami
Natasha Hessami has been lobbying the state of Washington to expand the eligibility for the State Need Grant from 70 percent of median income to 100 percent of the median income.
Last fall she worked with the Legislative Affairs Council to write the language of a proposal outlining this possible policy.
She is also an officer of the Society for the Advancement of Minority Students in the Sciences, saying that “it’s important for me to see diversity in the STEM field.”
Hessami explained there are a lot of opportunities in this field, “but minority students who don’t have parents who went to college, or don’t have parents in the STEM field, they don’t know about these opportunities.”
Hessami brings a lot of legislative experience to the table, as well as a unique perspective as a STEM major. “I want to increase the political engagement of those pursuing science careers,” said Hessami.
ASVP for Student Life
Brendan O’Neill
Brendan O’Neill is a sophomore economics and political science major.
He said he has gotten to see a side of things students normally don’t see as the current president for the Residence Hall Association.
“I’m running because I’m angry things are swept under the rug,” he said.
O’Neill said he wants to make sure information is more accessible to students. For example, he said there are rumors that students can’t live in gender-inclusive housing until their second year, which is untrue.
Students can’t be expected to go to meetings all the time and information needs to be made more available, he said.
He said he supports a push for ethnic studies and wants to give students the opportunity to speak for themselves and make sure others are listening.
O’Neill said security is also a priority of his. He wants to increase the number of lights, reform Western Alerts to be more helpful, add an external gate to dorms like Highland Hall and ensure key fobs are implemented across campus, like they will be in Buchanan Towers.
He sees his ability to work with and be honest with administrators as a strength. He also has experience serving on the AS Structural Review Committee and is familiar with bylaws, he said.
As for supporting Das, he said he is aware of their concerns and believes there is more work to be done.
“I want to see greater results, not empty promises,” he said.
Anne Lee
Anne Lee is junior human services major and second-year resident advisor.
She serves on the University Housing Representation and Advocacy Committee.
She was involved in organizing the RA movement last year and wants to continue to advocate for RAs.
“Where were the fruits of those labors?” she asked.
She said becoming an RA has shown her that the administrators don’t know what actually happens on the frontlines with students.
“Being an RA has allowed me to see a large amount of experiences from students and what they need to be successful at Western,” she said.
Lee said she wants to work on security issues, such as lighting on and around campus, but also issues like the readmission of perpetrators of sexual assault. She said the discrepancy between security in dorms also needs to be addressed, as well as the delays in sending out Western Alerts.
She said sustainability should also be thought of as what students need in order to sustain themselves, and conversations around sustainability must also consider equity and justice.
She said students of color are not served well by the university, and that she would push forward and center marginalized student voices.
Lee said all these changes won’t be accomplished in one year, and she hopes to work off of past and current efforts from the Board.
ASVP for Academic Affairs
Kyle McCaffery
McCaffery wants to align final times with class times, so that commuters, people with work schedules or people other transportation hindrances are able to have their finals at a time that has been pre-scheduled for their specific needs.
Undergraduate classes have a problem with bottlenecking, something McCaffrey has had direct experience with. It took him two years to take the freshman-level intro course for the Communications Science major, because of the discrepancies between class demand, the number of classes and the number of professors teaching.
McCaffery brings a insight from his technological background, which offers a different perspective on the technology students needs and how much everything costs.
He has been on the Emergency Response Committee at Western for the past two years, and has experience organizing and leading in the fencing club, as well as working with Boy Scouts of America, where he ran leadership training seminars in Washington and Alaska.
Levi Eckman
Levi Eckman is all about bringing in student representation, holding the university accountable to their promises and reforming GUR requirements.
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Eckman said he feels he has an understanding of the necessity of safe spaces, and says he “can only imagine how important they are for other marginalized identities as well.”
“Western puts such an emphasis on being equal, but we need to be equitable,” Eckman said. “We need to be asking how we can do better, and why must we do better.”
He would work towards expanding the dean’s advisory council, and develop a faculty and student led coalition to look at what is working, and what is lacking, he said.
In 2009, Math 112 had a 6.7 percent fail rate at Western, and now, the fail rate has almost tripled to over 15 percent, according to Eckman.
“We’ve developed new fields of study, things have changed and are changing,” Eckman said. “Progress lacks when we become complacent.”
He believes that discussions about identity groups should make sure to have a seat for those identities at the table, and that it’s possible to become a role model for people similar to you when you hold a post like this.
For Eckman, once he began to accept who he was, his education grew, and he believes that helping people learn about and engage with their identities is of vital importance in order for students to thrive.
Jacob Molloy
One of Molloy’s goals for the position is to expedite the process of developing a student union.
Different from the Associated Students in it’s make-up, a student union would have representatives that “could speak for many different sections of the student body; something the AS can’t always do,” said Molloy. A unionization effort would also work to bring together student employees, and giving bargaining power to ask for better benefits and working conditions, Molloy said.
Molloy has done work with the Bellingham Tenants Union, as well as grassroots activism and the Socialist Alternative. He wants to focus on creating an institutional environments where students have a lot of agency, and has background in implementing restorative justice and designing a restorative justice system for a school while in his teens.
An additional idea Molloy said he would work on developing further the Student Senate where two or three representatives from each academic department or college are able to advocate for their unique, departmental needs and compensated for their efforts. Molloy emphasized that “education doesn’t have to be just sitting in a classroom, but also having a voice in the community.”
Noble Solana-Walkinshaw
While working in the AS Board Office for the past year, Noble has rubbed shoulders with board members frequently.
He said that one of the most important things he has learned from them, and his supervisor, is “not to come into this job with a bunch of ideas about all of these things you want to change, but coming in with an open mind, ready to work with people.”
“Ultimately, the job is not about me, right? It’s about the people I’m representing,” Noble said.
He was critical of how the University handled the Global Pathways Program, and wants to be wary of for-profit organizations being involved with our school.
Noble wants to continue the position’s current agenda involving critiquing the GUR’s designated for students, as well as continuing to be critical of our faculty. “They’re all wonderful people doing good work,” said Noble. “But we all have failings. We need to fix the fact that 20-ish percent of people fail Intro to Logic, Philosophy 102, and all these QSR based GURs.”
Noble wants to commit to once a week spending one of his office hours tabling in Red Square, in order to increase interaction and communication between the AS and marginalized communities and the wider Western community.
On Noble’s short list of necessary adjustments to what is accessible, he plans on “making womxn hygiene products more accessible; it’s stupid we give out free condoms but we don’t give out free hygiene products,” he said.
Noble has been getting involved from day one.brings in a unique perspective as a Freshman, both working in the AS this past year and living in the dorms this past year, carrying issues from the community in with a fresh perspective.
ASVP for Activities
Ama Monkah
Ama Monkah wants to be ASVP for Activities because, as a club leader, she’s seen how clubs can struggle to obtain resources. Additionally, she thinks club organizers don’t receive enough credit, and should receive compensation in one form or another.
“In terms of compensation, [receiving] 1-2 credits for work they do. If not, then holding a formal banquet to recognize all the work done throughout the year,” Monkah said.
Monkah believes she’s qualified because she was the public relations officer for the African Caribbean Club fromm 2016 to 2017, she’s currently part of Students for Ethnic Studies and attended the ESC Presidents Council. This experience, Monkah said, taught her about budgeting, planning and leadership.
Monkah also hopes to increase student engagement with committees and clubs on campus, and believes all students should take advantage of their tuition dollars by getting involved.
“The money that we are paying for our tuition is allocated towards certain clubs and different initiatives on campus. I think it’s important for students to be aware of these initiatives and have their opinions on… where their money is going,” Monkah said.
Jarrod Stambaugh
Jarrod Stambaugh is running for ASVP for Activities to increase engagement with clubs on campus.
“I think clubs, in specific, are a really underused resource here on campus,” Stambaugh said. “There’s over 200 clubs, so there’s a lot of student involvement as far as staffing and maintaining the clubs we have, but I don’t think the representation is there for them yet.”
Stambaugh has two main goals for this position: to increase the physical presence between clubs and students, and to improve the AS Clubs website.
“Right now it can be a little hard to find clubs with the categories that we have. [For example], there’s ‘recreational’ and ‘special interest.’ So I think there’s ways to more clearly index the clubs that we have already,” Stambaugh said.
Stambaugh believes he’s qualified because, while other candidates have experience in the AS, his time as an outreach associate for Puget Sound Energy taught him how to relay important information quickly while keeping the audience’s attention. He hopes his experiences will give him an outsider’s perspective on the AS Board.