Why should you vote next week for an ASSU Executive? What impact will that Executive have on your experience at Stanford? Most importantly, why should you vote Thom and Stephanie?

You should vote for us because we care about the things that you care about. And we know how to make the changes you want to see happen. We already have a working relationship, both between the two of us and with various aspects of the administration. We want to work with students to figure out exactly what you want done by the Executive.

For us, this position isn’t about anything more than the students; what you want is what we want to give you if elected. You should vote because we actually want to make changes that can affect you.

A New Approach: Students First:
“Students First” is a novel approach to the ASSU Executive — we aim to focus on issues that students care about, to facilitate collaboration between students, to enhance the quality of student life at Stanford. Concretely, we aim to execute the “Students First” approach in two ways.

First, for the major issues and initiatives into which the University and various student groups are already pouring significant resources — Sustainability, Wellness, etc — we believe in increasing student input and student group collaboration.

Second, we believe in devoting a significant portion of our energy and weight, should we be elected, to making concrete changes on the smaller issues that often get overlooked, including streamlining the party planning process, instituting an ASSU Oversight Commission, and clarifying policies and procedures across campus.

Working Relationship:
Contrary to the typical ASSU Executive slate, our partnership was not engineered in an effort to appeal to various sectors of the student population. Instead, we have a long-standing, intimate working relationship, and we believe that this is one of our greatest strengths. Even before declaring candidacy, our calendars had been synced. Having worked together for a year and a half on Charity Fashion Show, we have each become incredibly knowledgeable about the other’s working style and all the idiosyncrasies.

Commitment:
As rising seniors, Thom and Stephanie have already taken the vast majority of their coursework, enabling them to devote more time to their ASSU positions. Thom, for instance, was prepared to graduate at the end of his junior year.

We have an extensive amount of time to commit to the ASSU Executive position, and we believe that our background, with exhaustive ties to student groups, university administration, and various other key figures on campus, uniquely position us to best serve as the ASSU Executive. We also believe that the fact that neither of us have previously held ASSU positions is a boon – it enables us to approach the position with a new perspective, having been close enough to recognize the major problems without being mired down in previous work.

In short, Thom and Stephanie believe that, as candidates, we bring a number of key qualities to the table that make us the best possible option for ASSU Executive. To learn more about our platform and campaign, feel free to check out the following sites:

http://thomandstephanie.com
http://facebook.com/thomandstephanie
http://formspring.me

Feel free to email both of us – [email protected] and [email protected] – with any questions or comments about our candidacy or if you would like to be more involved in our campaign.