This is your campaign, and you have made it your own. The messages we have seen already have blown us away. Students are sending in stories about how their smaller schools and colleges struggle to be included in important conversations across campus; stories of uninsured students in need of more mental health and wellness services; stories about the need for gender-inclusive housing; stories about the estimated 8,000 students living in Riverside being neglected because of where they live. The courage it takes to share these experiences is amazing. Let’s keep writing and let’s keep talking, but as we do that, let’s start changing. Let’s take it from passion to words and from words to policy.
That is what this campaign is all about. We want to do less talking and more listening. We want to do less talking and more executing.
Our campaign desires to take palpable actions on diversity while emphasizing and reaffirming inclusion efforts. As a member of the Student Advisory Committee for Diversity, Camron has been working with student leaders and administration to make campus an inclusive space for all students. In pursuit of that mission, UT currently offers diversity and inclusivity training to faculty and staff, but we believe students should know which professors have gone through the various training courses. We will implement a training tag system that shows which professors have undergone inclusivity training by identifiable tags on the course schedules and syllabi. This will provide students with more transparency about the learning environment and encourage professors to proudly undergo trainings and further means by which they connect with students.
Furthermore, Student Government changes leadership every year and with that comes the possibility of projects going unfinished. So then what happens to the work of previous administrations? We will create a continuity committee of Student Government members to continue to fight for initiatives, such as Reinstate the Rivalry, the Sure Walk program, Thanksgiving Break, Career Closet and the Food Pantry.
In an effort to build the credibility of the organization, we need to show students we are committed to finishing what we started and being transparent about the progress of our initiatives. The continuity committee will also identify success and missteps of legislation that can be actively considered as a way to establish a precedent for proctoring successful and sustainable legislation.
This campaign is committed to other areas such as sexual assault prevention training expansion, Sure Walk expansion, nontraditional student resources and mental health efforts. Most of all, this campaign is focused on you and your voice. From our experiences, we understand the power of voice and have worked to uplift underrepresented communities on campus. When Amie and I couldn’t find what we needed, we wrote new paths. When there were no pre-existing routes to follow or examples before us, we became pioneers. Understanding the distinct individuality of each student, we’ve recognized that everyone has a path to traverse as a pioneer no matter their external facing identities. This birthed the vision of UT by You.
If elected, Camron and Amie will stimulate a campus environment where each student feels empowered to use their voice, create the change they want to see and write their own chapter in UT history.
