A special election will be held to fill the vice president and treasurer seats on the Student Union after the resignation of current Vice President, Benedikt Reynolds ’19, and Treasurer, Jerry Miller ’19. Nine students declared that they would run for the position of vice president, and one student declared that he would run for treasurer.

Guillermo Caballero ’20, Alex Chang ’22, Vidit Dhawan ’19, Aaron Finkel ’20, Richard Kisack, Jr. ’19, Steven Luo ’21, Lucy Pugh-Sellers ’20, Nakul Srinivas ’21 and Linfei Yang ’20 announced their candidacy for the vice presidency while Adrian Ashley ’20 is running unopposed for the treasurer seat.

Candidates were required to declare their candidacy by Monday, Dec. 3 at 11:59 p.m., according to an email sent out to the student body by the Chief of Elections Qingtian Mei ’21.

Since declaring their candidacies, Pugh-Sellers has dropped out of the race and Luo is “temporarily suspending” his campaign, he announced in a Facebook post.

Reynolds and President of the Student Union Hannah Brown ’19 are not endorsing candidates for either open position.

Candidates gathered to meet constitutes at a “Meet the Candidates” event over cookies made by Brown Wednesday night.

The special election will begin at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9 and runs through the 10th, for 24 hours. The Brandeis Hoot interviewed those running about their experience, platform and feelings about the Union and Senate as a whole. The vice presidential candidates are listed alphabetically below.

Guillermo Caballero

Caballero cited his experience creating the Student Union in his high school in Paraguay and serving as its president. Caballero believes that not being in the Student Union previously at Brandeis will give a “fresh perspective” to the Student Union, he said.

Caballero’s main campaign is focused on not only unifying members of the Student Union in one place but also working to include more student resources including the Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center (PARC).

“PARC is such an important part of campus and I don’t think that many people are aware of what it does, that it even exists. But it’s a very important institution and part of campus and resource that we have,” said Caballero.

If he gets elected, Caballero hopes to engage in more conversation with PARC and publicize what they do to both the student government and the student body and act as a “liaison.”

He will also work to increase diversity within the Senate and the rest of the Student Union. “I would be more willing and more proactively looking to hear voices because I don’t see a lot of visibility on campus. I think there’s room for improvement,” he said.

Pugh-Sellers, who dropped out of the race after reading Caballero’s platform, endorsed Caballero, saying, “He and I have a lot of similar goals, and I felt great hope that someone other than me could do what needed to be done.”

Alex Chang

Chang, who has served as Senator to the class of 2022 since he was elected this year, emphasized that the union needs to “do more.” If elected, he would focus on increasing transparency in the Union and reducing costs to students including washing, drying and printing, he said in an interview with The Brandeis Hoot.

He also spoke about wanting to educate and involve the student body with the Union. He also spoke about creating a culture in the Senate where people can respectfully disagree. He also spoke about his project to install pianos in freshman dormitory lounges, which revealed a controversy over how Union funds are allocated and growing tensions in the Senate that preceded the resignation of Reynolds.

He said that the piano project “wasn’t necessarily a direct causation” of Reynolds resignation, though it may have played into his thought process. Chang concluded by saying, “If I can accomplish that [the pianos] as a freshman, as a senator, then just imagine what I can accomplish as vice president.”

Vidit Dhawan

Vidit Dhawan is currently the class senator for the class of 2019 and the senator representative to the Allocations Board. Dhawan’s campaign is focused on increasing the transparency of the different branches of the Union. Through his knowledge of all the branches, he believes that he would be able to accomplish this.

Dhawan believes that the way to increase transparency is to not just include the perspective of one branch of the Union.

Aaron Finkel

Aaron Finkel, who has served on the Senate for three years as a quad senator, senator at large and now class senator for the class of 2020, has experience with some of the vice presidential duties, such as running senate meetings, which he did last year after he was elected by the Senate as executive senator. He spoke about his platform which he also posted on Facebook.

If elected, Finkel would continue open forums where students can voice concerns to the Union and other administrators, reduce fees and the tradition of “nickel and diming” students and would work to increase communication with clubs and student organizations. He hopes to help the Senate roll out a new student life online platform he has been involved in creating, that is expected to be introduced next year, that would centralize the club process including communication between clubs and club renewal forms.

Finkel described his frustration with the Union this year, saying that the “behavior of some members has been unacceptable.” He continued, “We’ve been sidetracked by useless drama and nonsense, and I want that to stop, and I’ll do everything I can to make that stop.” He went on to say he wanted to build trust within the Union and between the Union and the student body.

Finkel also described his drafts of amendments that would increase supervision of the Allocations Board of the Union. Finkel informally met with some of the Allocations Board members and spoke on how he wants to work together on the draft amendments with A-Board. He emphasized that “We’re all students… We’re all doing this for the benefit of Brandeis and I think we just need to take a step back and realize that.”

Richard Kisack, Jr.

Kisack served on the senate last year as Village Quad senator and has served on Senate committees including Services and Outreach Committee, the Bylaws Committee and the Campus Working Group (COW-G) committee. This year he has served as a senator at large and as chair of COW-G.

If elected, Kisack would focus on streamlining communication to the community and focus on mentoring new senators who might not know how to start initiatives and projects. He emphasized that he is running on behalf of the student body, and as the vice president, which is a non-voting member of the senate, he would focus on effectively mentoring and leading the Union to encourage new ideas from members.

Kisack spoke about the climate of the Senate, saying he wanted to encourage healthy, productive criticism. “I personally think it’s a good idea to always show respect and when you have a concern with someone to talk to them directly,” he said. “I also would like to make sure that we’re having feedback from the student body themselves.” Kisack emphasized that he wanted to personally reach out to constituents and senators about issues that come up in the Union.

Steven Luo

Luo suspended his campaign in a Facebook post, saying, “I am very sad to announce that I will be temporarily suspending my campaign for Vice President of the Student Union. This would mean that I would be unable to answer questions in person at the Meet the Candidates Night. There will be another announcement for when I decide to resume the campaign on this forum.”

He was running on a platform of efficiency and effectiveness. Luo was planning to run so that the Student Union would “accurately represent our views [of the student body],” he said. Luo has previously not been a part of the Student Union at Brandeis.

His main goal was to increase the diversity of the campus, Luo told The Hoot in an interview. “I would host programs and events such that people would be exposed to new cultures, new languages, new people. People that are not within their typical friend group,” he said.

He also wanted to make the Union more “present” in the daily lives of students, Luo said. He would do this through going out and hosting dinners that provided free food to the students, stating that having them at night would be more accommodating to students because classes often do not fall during that time.

Nakul Srinivas ’21

Srinivas focused his campaign on his knowledge of the Union and his ability to lead. He is currently a member of the Social Justice and Diversity Committee within the Student Union. As a reporter for The Justice, he recently composed a piece that required over four hours of interviews with current senators, attendance at multiple Senate meetings and reading the Constitution and Bylaws thoroughly to gain information.

If elected, he would make sure that more members of the Student Union, outside of committee chairs, are included in conversations within the Union. “I would focus on making sure the student body’s ideas and the committee’s ideas are represented as well as possible in the Senate and the Executive Board,” explained Srinivas. “I want every student to feel like they are a part of the Student Union even if they are not actually engaging in it.”

This would be done through constant emails informing the student body on what is happening within the Union. He will also hold events that bring together all parts of the Union and making sure that committee members feel as though they are running the event alongside the Union members, “so that they feel they are playing as important a role as people who have been elected to a position,” he said.

Linfei Yang

Yang is currently the international student senator and served in that position on the Union last year. He has served on the Club Support Committee, Social Justice Committee, the Bylaws Committee and the Services and Outreach Committee. Yang, however, said that, “I don’t really think that experience in this case necessarily matters.”

Yang emphasized that he wanted to bring the Union back to the Brandeis value of social justice, clarify how spaces are used on campus, continue with reforms to the Bylaws and Constitution and address mental health issues on campus.

He spoke about the Senate, which has been marked by a recent controversy over how the Union funds are allocated, saying, “There is nothing wrong with the climate of the senate.” He continued, “Saying that somehow people respectfully disagreeing with each other means there is something wrong with the Senate is just not true.”

When asked if he considered the piano project he worked on with Chang a contributing factor to Reynolds’ resignation, Yang responded, “It’s unfortunate that that connection seems to be the impression that many people have.” He continued, “Our piano project is the victim of, you know, the recent string of controversies regarding transparency and budgetary issues rather than the driving force behind it.”

Adrian Ashley

Ashley has served as assistant treasurer for a semester and is also the director of programming on the Student Union this year and is running unopposed for the treasurer position.

Ashley highlighted his experience on both sides of the treasury. Being the treasurer for Mock Trial and Brandeis Football Club, he understands the struggles of learning the mechanics and getting the necessary assistance to solve issues.

If he gets elected, Ashley will largely focus on making the process of treasurer easier for people and making it more accessible for treasurers of clubs. “I would meet with Stephen Costa, the budget analyst, and the other treasurers to figure out a way to put the club members first and not the financial aspect of it, so they can worry about how their club is growing as a community, rather than how their club is going to be prevented from growing from financial difficulty,” Ashley told The Hoot.

He will also work to make more accessible training processes and provide students with resources like a handbook or a website that helps to lead them to the right answer. “I think that voting for me is voting for a process that is easier,” explained Ashley. “It is voting for someone who knows the frustrations of it and who can relate to the students, specifically club leaders on how the process works.”