Clara and Vail provide the best vision for GUSA

There are a great many options in this year’s GUSA presidential election, and each one presents quality ideas. But one ticket clearly stands out from the pack with the necessary experience, a practical and ambitious policy platform, and a wider vision for what GUSA can be. Clara Gustafson (SFS ‘13) and Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) are that ticket, and a vote for them represents a concrete investment in enhanced student life, a richer academic environment, and a redoubling of Georgetown’s commitment to sustainability and social justice.

The Gustafson/Kohnert-Yount ticket covers many of the practical goals which other candidates like to harp on, but it also envisions a larger role for themselves as student advocates. Their plan for an annual undergraduate research symposium is unique among the candidates, and holds the potential to legitimately enrich the academic experience of countless students on the Hilltop. Clara and Vail also present the most developed and task-oriented approach to campus sustainability. Their plans range from the immediate and tangible, like the installation of motion sensors in common rooms, to the more lasting and ambitious, like the establishment of a Georgetown Office of Sustainability. Their platform is also unique in its focus on supporting the campus arts community, a vibrant and talented group of Hoyas too often overlooked by the administration and student advocacy organizations.

Clara and Vail’s is the only ticket dedicated to strengthening Georgetown’s commitment to the Jesuit ideals of social justice. Whereas none of the other candidates even mention the Center for Social Justice in their platforms, these two promise to pressure the administration into finally appointing a permanent director for the CSJ, lobby for increased funding for the Center, expedite implementation of the SIPS fund, and appoint a position on their executive board committed to social justice issues. These are far from the only laudable Gustafson/Kohnert-Yount policies, but they represent areas where these candidates have broken from the rest of the pack to re-envision the Hilltop. Further, smaller ideas like a campus bikeshare or a Georgetown Craigslist website that are the focus of other campaigns can easily be taken up by any incoming executive. What really matters is a difference in vision, which Clara and Vail provide.

Gustafson and Kohnert-Yount have also had the most extensive and applicable experience in GUSA and elsewhere on the Hilltop. Clara has been in GUSA since her freshman year, and spearheaded the highly successful SIPS fund initiative for a year and a half. She brings the necessary  administrative relationships and institutional knowledge to navigate the dizzying Georgetown bureaucracy. Vail led the College Democrats, has worked with Georgetown Solidarity Committee, headed voter registration drives on campus, and was an integral part of the Leo’s unionization drive, which was arguably the most significant positive change in the Hilltop community in recent years. Together, they provide a formidable team of University know-how, familiarity with the student landscape, and involvement with those social justice issues that are at the core of Georgetown’s mission. At the same time, they are unafraid to tap into grassroots student support as a means of pressuring the administration when conventional avenues of negotiation are closed. The combination of Clara’s understanding of GUSA and the administration, along with Vail’s record of success outside of the University’s framework, renders this pair the political capital to represent student interests. They are the candidates who will really “get shit done.”

That said, there are a number of innovative ideas from the other campaigns that Clara and Vail would do well to adopt during their tenure. One which is especially pertinent comes from the Delaney-Appau ticket, who proposed during their Voice interview the addition of a law school alum as a resource at the Student Advocacy Office. The Malkerson/Cleary idea for a “promise tracker” is also an important component of executive accountability. Tyler Sax (SFS ‘13) and Michael Crouch (SFS ‘13) have displayed great collaborative spirit throughout the campaign, and their crowdsourcing initiative holds promise for integrating the voices of the wider student body. John Morris (COL ‘13) and Lauren Weber’s (COL ‘13) ideas for the SAO were also particularly apt, considering Morris was one of the founders of the office. The Tisa/Walsh proposal to integrate representatives of each student advisory body into their executive board is laudable and forward-thinking. And everyone would appreciate facilities reform, as LaMagna and Starks have proposed.

But in the end, priorities are what define a campaign, and priorities are what set Clara and Vail apart from their fellow candidates. Their emphasis lies not only on improving academic culture, sustainability, the arts, and social justice initiatives, but also on encouraging conversation on diversity, supporting student  health and athletics, and cutting the GUSA budget. Although they have been far too coy about it in their rhetoric, their candidacy represents a novel and much-needed change in GUSA’s trajectory. They are the candidates not only of particularities, but of broad vision. If GUSA is ever to become a functioning and productive student advocacy organization and not some distant bureaucracy, it needs leaders that envision a larger and more activist role for it on campus. That means it will need to exert considerable influence on an administration too often hostile to student interests. Clara and Vail have the expertise to navigate the University landscape without conflict, and are not afraid to utilize student will as leverage against the slow-moving administration. More than that, they represent a new approach to the GUSA Executive and embody the ideals and values of a just and dynamic Hilltop, without resorting to negative campaign tactics or empty displays of irrelevant nationalism in Red Square. The choice is clear this GUSA election season.Vote Clara and Vail on Feb. 23.