In anticipation of the April 1 announcement of the list of candidates running for leadership positions on the Undergraduate Council of Students executive board, including president and vice president, many students said they hope the election will address issues — including community inclusiveness and administrative responsiveness — that arose from last semester’s charged campus debates over the protests of New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s lecture and the University’s decision not to divest from coal.
UCS’s role as a vessel or facilitator of social activism is likely to arise as a key issue. “I’d really like for the new UCS body to continue working closely with social justice groups and activists on campus,” said Tammy Jiang ’16, a member of Brown Divest Coal, adding that she hopes to see “new UCS (executive) board members work on improving student input in really big University decisions.”
“I think it would be useful for people who were running to take (last year’s political controversies) into consideration,” she added. Candidates “should capitalize on the momentum that has been generated.”
“The more well-connected they are across the Brown spectrum, the better,” said Kevin Carty ’15, a UCS general body member and former Herald opinions columnist. “They absolutely need to be for student power and student representation at all levels of the University as much as possible. That’s not just a pipe dream, that can happen.”
UCS member Justice Gaines ’16 said he hoped the candidates are able to maximize UCS visibility. “It’s important that candidates recognize how the administration sees UCS, and how that plays into what the UCS should be.”
When administrators need student feedback, they often approach UCS. “In a lot of ways, UCS is naturally political, and I think it’s important for any candidate to understand that regardless of their personal feelings of what UCS should be doing and … the way UCS operates, it is representative of students,” he added.
UCS Vice President Sam Gilman ’15 hopes to see a collection of candidates that “demonstrates throughout the campaign process that they are willing to actively engage parts of campus that are not necessarily the parts of campus where they hang out the most, engage different communities, hear different people’s concerns, ask questions and listen.” He also described how election season can “really set the agenda for the next year. A good campaign season is one in which the candidate learns something, learns about a new issue that they become passionate about.”
As relevant issues come up, “hopefully people will look to UCS and go, ‘Well, what are you doing about it? What’s happening with that?’” said Maahika Srinivasan ’15, chair of the UCS Academic and Administrative Affairs committee. “I think that it’s about time that we have robust conversation on this campus, and I think contested elections actually would provide that no matter what,” adding that “people aren’t running for the sake of running, people are running because they care.”
UCS President Todd Harris ’14.5 said he hopes candidates continue “to make UCS a more general body, to make sure that we’re still bringing folks in and not just making it kind of a closed group.” He described the importance of candidates being “really open and receptive to the ideas that they hear from students as they’re collecting signatures and campaigning,” adding that “the great thing about Brown is that every student cares about a lot of different things, and so candidates have to be knowledgeable and gain a lot of feedback about a lot of different issues.”
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