ASU's Undergraduate Student Government (USG) is holding executive ticket elections university-wide for the upcoming 2024-25 school year.
USG-WV grants West Valley campus students the opportunity to get leadership involvement and experience around their campus and strives to connect students and university administration. USG-WV supports student involvement, outreach and well-being and provides club funding for West Valley campus organizations through Senate Appropriations.
Along with USG-WV, executive ticket campaigns are underway at the ASU Tempe, Downtown and Polytechnic campuses.
READ MORE: What you need to know about Tempe's USG executive candidates for '24-25
Over the past few weeks, candidates have been campaigning across their specific campus before election voting occurs March 26 - 27.
USG-WV has two executive tickets running for the president, vice president of service, and vice president of policy positions: The Shahin Executive Ticket and The Stusen Executive Ticket.
Shahin Ticket
Sedra Shahin is running for president, Amy Noriega Pineda is running for Vice President of Service, and Alexis Jade Dicks is running for Vice President of Policy. All three candidates are first-generation students.
Sedra Shahin is a second-year student pursuing a Business Administration degree and a Special Events Management certificate. She has been actively involved in USG-WV since her freshman year through her positions as the W.P. Carey Senator and University Affairs Chair.
Noriega Pineda is a sophomore studying psychology and transborder Chicana/Latino studies with a minor in Spanish. Dicks is a junior studying Elementary School education and has been a part of USG-WV for three years.
The Shahin Ticket's campaign is structured around four main pillars: Inclusion, Advocacy, Accessibility and Compassion.
READ MORE: Meet the unopposed ticket for USG Polytechnic 2024-25 executive office
From her past leadership positions, Shahin believes the job of USG is "to advocate for students, to be their voice, and to represent them even when they didn't know they had that representation."
Shahin said something she would like to change is to eliminate the stigma around student government by "bridging the gap" between USG-WV senators and the rest of the student body.
"We are just going to ensure that students know that we are here for them," Shahin said. "Just because we have that leadership position does not mean we don't struggle like every other student on campus."
The ticket said that, through their vow of "meeting students halfway," they would like to start implementing an open-door policy, recording, live streaming and making the minutes for both USG and Executive meetings easily accessible to the student body.
"If we can't fulfill a promise we make during our campaign, we will vow to fulfill an equivalent or even a better promise," Shahin said. "And that is something I would say would exemplify everything that we are trying to do as a ticket.
Read more about their platform here.
Stusen Ticket
Rae Stusen is running for president, Lindsey Stevens is running for vice president of service, and Joshua Cole is running for vice president of policy.
Stusen is a sophomore transfer student studying environmental science. They have been involved in USG-WV since their freshman year and are currently the vice president of service.
Stevens is a junior studying social justice and human rights with a minor in communications, and Cole is a freshman studying applied computing.
The four main pillars of the Stusen Ticket are inclusion, transparency, integrity, and sustainability.
Through their time with USG-WV, Stusen said they believe the most rewarding part of being involved is witnessing the positive changes the student government events and resources have made around campus.
One of these resources is the Healthcart, which Stusen established on the West Valley campus this year. It allows any student to access free school supplies, toiletries, and other hygiene and health products at any time.
"It was a way to just make sure that students have everything that they need throughout the day to help them prosper within their education, professional lives and personal lives," Stusen said.
The ticket said they want to continue to expand "disability and queer advocacy," along with sustainability awareness around the West Valley campus. The ticket plans to do this by donating items to queer students, establishing brail across the campus and creating a community garden.
By planning to provide more professional and personal development opportunities to West Valley students, Stusen wants students to "grow overall as a person and feel that (the) University really helped them become better."
Read more about the ticket's platform here.
Results from the election will be posted on April 1 to the ASASU Website.
Edited by Grey Gartin, Walker Smith and Angelina Steel.
Reach the reporter at kehumble@asu.edu and follow @kennedihumble on X.
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