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It is hard to believe that it has already been over one year since we, Justine Hastings and Ryan Golden, first announced our nomination for president and vice president of Syracuse University’s Student Association. It seems like just yesterday we were standing on stage at the Pride Union Drag Show Finals to announce our candidacy. 

A lot has changed in the time since then, whether it be the worldwide pandemic, the national discourse that has inevitably made its way to our campus or the way we communicate broadly with students. But so much has also stayed the same.  

The mix of both the new and the old practices poses a complex problem for future leadership to solve over the next year and beyond. We need student leaders who are not only willing to take on that challenge but have the wherewithal to do so on day one. 

Because of this, we emphatically endorse David Bruen and Darnelle Stinfort for president and vice president of SA.

This team possesses some of the same traits we held when we announced our candidacy and, we believe, served us well as an advocacy team. There is experience on this ticket that has both negotiated with the university, as well as kept their finger on the pulse of the student body.

Bruen and Stinfort are both policy-oriented and have a keen awareness of the fact that we cannot program our way out of systemic problems on our campus. They understand that we are not just one speaker, one town hall or one tabling event away from solving some of our most pervasive societal ills. Not only do they know that but they are also willing to take up the fight here on campus.

Many people approach student advocacy with the idea that we should start in a compromise position in order to avoid seeming unreasonable. But that way of thinking has produced few results in practice, and we are happy to see that this campaign has taken notice. They have already come out with strong policy proposals concerning student tuition costs that, if implemented, would change the experience our students have on this campus in a drastic way. This kind of bold thinking is what will change our campus and community for the better. Most importantly, it restores student faith in the system here at SU. 

At the end of the day, there is no ticket we could envision that could better advocate for student concerns and articulate the feelings of the SU undergraduate student body. We urge every undergraduate student at SU to vote for Bruen and Stinfort for SA president and vice president during the week of April 26 through MySlice.

 

Justine Hastings, SA President

Ryan Golden, SA Vice President

Published on April 20, 2021 at 7:08 am