Stanford ASSU executives outline initiatives

Last spring, Erica Scott, ’20, and Isaiah Drummond, ’20, took office as president and vice president of the Associated Students of Stanford University, or ASSU. Since then, they have been addressing the issues that students care about most. With the new academic year underway, Scott and Drummond outline their priorities, the issues students should know about and how students can get involved with student government.

What are your top priorities/initiatives for this quarter and academic year?

Associated Students of Stanford University executives Erica Scott, ’20, and Isaiah Drummond, ’20. (Image credit: Alex Kekauoha)

As this year’s ASSU executives, we have been working diligently to tackle long-standing student concerns since taking office this past spring. Our primary goals for this year fall under three categories: (1) elevating student voices and input, (2) improving community wellness and (3) broadening our definition of “community” to address issues that occur beyond our campus borders. Some of the successes so far include helping students learn about and engage with the Stanford-SEIU Local 2007 labor negotiations, working with the Graduate Student Council and Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises to create a recurring food bank for food-insecure graduate students and partnering with Students for a Sustainable Stanford to provide affordable airport transportation for students.

Are there issues you think students should know about?

We are currently working to gather student feedback on the recently released Future of the Major and First-Year Experience proposals. If passed by the Faculty Senate, these proposals will have a tremendous impact on the undergraduate experience and we want student perspectives to fundamentally inform the decision-making process. As we prepare to represent the student voice in the upcoming Faculty Senate deliberations, we are collecting as much input from students as possible. Anyone who is interested in submitting their feedback should fill out this form or email us at president@assu.stanford.edu.

How can students become more engaged with student government, or help improve the undergraduate experience at Stanford? 

We’re excited whenever we hear that students want to get involved with student government, and we’re glad to say that there are lots of ways for them to do so. There’s one particular avenue we want to highlight: This year, we’ve reformed the internal structure of the ASSU to create a new system of issue-based Special Committees. Each committee corresponds to a particular advocacy priority, and membership is open to the general student body. You can find a list of the committee titles and chairs under the “Our Priorities” section on the ASSU website. Students can join a committee simply by emailing the relevant committee chair and expressing their interest.