Last year, the ASSU executive election was decided by a total of 38 student votes, and a subsequent vote by the Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council (GSC) in a run-off between the top two slates. Ultimately, Hershey Avula and Mondaire Jones won the executive jobs in an election rife with controversy. They took office promising to restore the credibility of the ASSU through advocacy work and the creation of large-scale social events on campus.

Before the year began, Avula/Jones started work on large-scale social events through their summer party initiative. The ASSU threw two parties over the summer in hopes of creating a more social campus-wide atmosphere during the months when few are on campus. These parties were relatively successful, though we question whether or not it is the ASSU’s place to throw parties over the summer when most people paying for it are not present.

The party theme continued with the revived Mausoleum party and the Big Party before Big Game. Both enhanced the credibility of the ASSU in its ability to hold large-scale social events — these parties were hugely successful. This year’s version of Mausoleum party went without some of the problems from last year’s, so the lower turnout can be at least partially attributed to the fact that it was held in the middle of the week. Big Party, while not the Big Game bonfire the electorate had been promised, was a good substitute. No one really “in the know” thought the bonfire was going to happen anyway, and Big Party demonstrated impressive coordination between many groups on campus. There is no doubt that Avula/Jones come through with campus social events.

One of the first advocacy successes for the pair was to revitalize the course guide on Axess. Now students can see the results from the evaluations that each student must take at the end of a quarter. Students have been asking for this service since it was shut down in 2005 due to poor quality. Avula/Jones even went a step further working with the creators of CourseRank, which is a site where students can find more relevant feedback about student experiences in a certain class.

Yet, there are other advocacy issues where the executives have not been so successful. The University is still refusing to provide health care to dependents of graduate students. This issue was a large part of the Avula/Jones campaign, and the pair won a large percentage of the graduate student vote. However, most of the successes of this administration are clearly geared towards undergraduates. The executive team is supposed to represent all students on campus and the differences between undergraduate and graduate student concerns need to be reconciled more fairly.

One service that Avula/Jones has provided both undergraduate and graduate students is the ASSU airport shuttle. Despite a somewhat rocky start during the spring trial run, the shuttle program has grown to just over 800 patrons with more expected over spring break. There is also talk of starting a return shuttle service from the airport. This program has given students a more convenient option than public transportation and a cheaper alternative to Super Shuttle.

The final measure of the executive team’s success is the response to students. In this, Avula/Jones faces a tough task: student sentiment is hard to track and even harder to respond to. However, they have made some concrete changes based on response to student voices. Through advocacy efforts, the pair has worked with the Axe & Palm to increase its vegetarian and vegan options. The Axe & Palm is still finding it hard to compete for the hearts and minds of students in the shadow of its predecessor, the CoHo, but the recent addition of crepes to the menu has many students smiling.

Overall, this executive slate has delivered on its promises and goals. A tense election season seems to have brought more accountability to this team, and Avula/Jones has brought back more credibility to the ASSU. But there is still much more work to be done; as this election season kicks off with seven executive slates, we hope these candidates look to build on the work that has been done. The slates should look to run with a platform of concrete, realistic changes that will better serve the students with a particular eye towards graduate student needs.