UPDATED: March 19, 2019 at 10:00 p.m.

Syracuse University students Ryan Golden and Kailee Vick announced their candidacy for Student Association president and vice president, respectively, in a letter of intent released Tuesday afternoon.

Golden, a sophomore policy studies and religion major, currently serves as co-chair of SA’s Academic Affairs Committee and has served in the Assembly. Vick, a freshman international relations major, is the director of relations with the Department of Public Safety for SA. She has worked as a staff writer for The Daily Orange.

In their letter, the two vowed to support and advocate for a review of DPS, which students called for after the assault of three students on Ackerman Avenue. SA has condemned SU for not recognizing that the attack was “racially-motivated” and passed a bill calling for a DPS review.

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“As President and Vice President, we would rather spend our time taking the message that students have already repeated through the General Body protests, through Recognize Us, and now the Ackerman Assault and advocating at the top of our lungs that students must be heard,” the letter of intent read.

THE General Body was a coalition of more than 50 student organizations at SU that organized an 18-day sit-in Crouse-Hinds Hall during the fall 2014 semester. The group called for action on topics ranging from financial transparency to better mental health services and more training on marginalized identities and experiences.

Recognize Us was a student coalition that organized protests on campus in spring and fall 2018 following the expulsion of the Theta Tau engineering fraternity. SU expelled Theta Tau for its creation of videos that Chancellor Kent Syverud at the time called “extremely racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities.”

In their letter of intent, Golden and Vick said the review of DPS would be focused on confronting discrimination that “lives within the Department of Public Safety.”

They also highlighted campus sexual assault as a priority in light of the Trump administration’s proposed changes to Title IX — the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational institutions that receive federal funding.

Golden also works as co-chair of the Student Life Committee in SU’s University Senate. He has worked for two years to bring Callisto, a third-party college sexual assault reporting system, to campus, according to the letter of intent.

Golden and Vick also said they would support students with disabilities by bringing attention to what they consider a lack of accessibility in residence halls and university buildings. They said SU administrators have not listened to students and that the university does not care about what marginalized communities need on campus.

“We want to bring the message that has been echoed by countless campus leaders for the past several years and want to bring the message the campus has to the University,” the letter said. “We’ve given them an opportunity to listen to us, now we have to make the(m) hear us.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Ryan Golden’s year was misstated. Golden is a sophomore. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Published on March 19, 2019 at 2:28 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326