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David Bruen and Darnelle Stinfort are this year’s only candidates for Student Association president and vice president.

The deadline for submitting a campaign passed Wednesday. Voting will be open on MySlice for a week starting April 26, after SA voted at Monday’s Assembly meeting to move the election back two weeks.

Bruen and Stinfort are proposing a fixed tuition program that would guarantee students only pay the tuition rate that was set when they started at SU for their four years.

SU raised tuition by 3% for undergraduate students for the 2021-22 academic year, which Bruen said is unacceptable.

“We really want to tackle the tuition problem,” Bruen said.

The pair hopes to tackle problems of financial accessibility at SU, with proposals to implement a tuition-freeze program.

They said their ultimate goal is to start conversations that will lead to lasting change.

“In past years, SA candidates have talked about a few ideas, and that’s it. But they’re not necessarily tying that in with a longer-term vision,” Bruen said. “We’re proposing a pretty bold answer to a lot of the concerns and questions that students have raised.”

The pair’s campaign platform focuses on four main points: financial accessibility, health and safety, academic advancements and community inclusivity.

“We chose those specifically because we felt like there are a lot of problems on campus, and it seemed when we grouped our policies or our ideas that we had together at the time, they fit into those categories the best,” said Stinfort, a junior biotechnology major.

Stinfort said that she and Bruen are planning to create policies that will better prioritize students’ mental health and raise awareness for sexual assault on campus. They also want to work to increase transparency in the Department of Public Safety and help students feel safe on campus.

The candidates said their ultimate goal is not necessarily to see policies through, but rather to get students talking about important issues in the hopes that those conversations will spark future change.

“We are proposing a lot of things, and a lot of big things, but that comes with the humility and the recognition that we are not going to be able to achieve those things,” Bruen said.

Bruen, a sophomore studying political science and policy studies, currently serves as SA’s speaker of assembly. Last year, he chaired SA’s Board of Elections and Membership and oversaw the presidential elections.

While Stinfort does not currently hold a position on SA, she said she’s passionate about improving the student experience at SU and hopes, along with Bruen, to increase SA’s engagement with the student body.

“In our case with our platform, we have all these ideas, but we want the students to tell us what ideas are important to them, to prioritize and hopefully make a reality,” Stinfort said.

As president, Bruen said he hopes that the student body will be able to recognize the importance of SA and the impact it has on their lives as students.

“We are trying to make SA a more engaging, more established, more powerful organization on this campus, so that its influence in decision-making is more clear,” Bruen said. “That only will happen if we inform students about SA, but more importantly, do things that affect their daily lives so they can actually care about what we do.”

SA is the largest advocacy group for students on campus, Bruen said. He would like to see the student body’s involvement in SA extend beyond the election season through the rest of the year.

“Everyone is a part of SA, every undergraduate student,” Bruen said. “It is so important that we realize how important it is.”

Although they are currently running the only campaign, Bruen and Stinfort said it’s important that students vote for SA president and vice president on MySlice when voting opens April 26 to show their support.

“We may be the only candidates for this year, but that does not mean that this election does not matter, because the turnout and the support that we get from students will determine how effective we can be at doing the good work on behalf of the students,” Bruen said.

Stinfort said running unopposed will motivate her and Bruen to work harder to prove themselves to the student body.

“This is kind of a test in a way because we still need to get the students to vote,” Stinfort said. “We’re ready to prove that we are passionate and we are willing to actually put in the work.”

Bruen and Stinfort said they plan to make more of their policies publicly available soon. The main message they want student voters to receive is that they are ready to put in the work and be advocates for SU students, they said.

“If we achieve almost nothing outside of SA, I would be content if I knew that we had made a systemic change in the university or a major cultural change, so that people realize how important SA was and the value that it provides to everyone,” Bruen said.

Published on April 7, 2021 at 11:43 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan