Weinberg junior Gauri Adarsh and Medill junior John Sisco won the Associated Student Government presidency Feb. 14 and will begin their term in Spring Quarter.

The election was the duo’s second attempt at the presidency, and they won in the final round of ranked choice voting with nearly 53% of the vote.

The Daily spoke with Adarsh and Sisco about their reaction to the election and their upcoming plans.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily: Going into the election, what were you expecting, and what ended up being different?

Sisco: Originally, we thought this was going to be a fairly conventional election in the sense that it would primarily be ASG insiders jostling amongst themselves, getting the traditional groups from endorsements and so forth. Obviously, that all blew up on Tuesday, when the debate happened. Gauri can talk a little bit more about the debate, but the immediate outpouring of support for Alan (Hu) and Noah (Cohrs) after that point, I think shocked pretty much everyone.

In retrospect, it makes a lot of sense. I’ve spoken with both of them afterwards to indicate I actually appreciate what they were trying to accomplish, and what they ultimately did, in the sense that it was the most engagement I’d seen with ASG in my entire time at this University. And I can talk more to that sentiment later, if you’re curious about it, but in the moment, it was very overwhelming, because these Fizz polls, for whatever that’s worth, were coming out, and Alan and Noah were dominating. It wasn’t even close. I guess it felt like things became incredibly chaotic throughout the second half of the week, in a way that was kind of entertaining, but also deeply stress inducing.

Adarsh: The debate was insane. It was genuinely the most shocking 60 minutes of my life. My mouth was agape a lot. I was like, “Huh?” Because ASG, you know what to expect usually, which it was really shocking. It changed our mentality going into the presidency as to how we can best serve the students. That really opened our eyes. So, the debate was crazy. One of the most life-changing experiences I’ve had, that’s for sure.

The Daily: Going forward, how are you going to use that new perspective to act as presidents?

Adarsh: Right now we’re presidents-elect, so we’re not actually fully in office yet, but we’ve started creating plans for the exec board that we want to see. For example, we really want to make sure everyone in the school has access to exec board applications and committee applications. We’re going to try doing that through posters. And, we’re going to try doing that through a town hall that we’re trying to host at the beginning of Spring Quarter to make sure that anyone who wants to get involved with student government can. We can consider all of those applications equally, instead of just really staying within people who know ASG, continue to rise through ASG, and that is how the system works.

Trying to get a broader breadth of the students involved, hopefully will make us a more representative institution. But, we also want to make sure that senators have more power to change things that people know. For example, I didn’t even know that any student could do a bill in the Senate if they had a Senator co-sponsor, which is huge.

The Daily: I know you guys mentioned what you were going to do on day one. Can we go through that again, and specifically, what are your top priorities going into this role?

Sisco: I can also give some practical insight into how the transition process works, because when we come into office, it’s going to be alongside an entirely new executive branch. Of course, people would be resuming positions, but a new slate of positions. The first and foremost thing that we’ll be working on is establishing our new team with the new executive positions serving underneath it.

The first priority is getting students in positions where they can advocate for the other policy proposals. The policy list was extensive, but ASG cannot snap its fingers and enact most of these instantaneously. So, it’s administration-building that comes first, on top of communication.
Like we mentioned earlier, we want ASG to have a functioning online presence by the day Spring Quarter begins. That would be the dream.

Realistically, we’re working with a small team because we’re in a transition team right now, but that’s the goal. The idea is that the first thing we want done when we step in those doors is putting together a fully functioning, motivated team composed not only of the traditional ASG insiders, but also the students this election has mobilized, who have ambitious plans about how ASG can matter more to students than they do now. Because very clearly it’s a point of concern on this campus that people think ASG is either something they’re unaware of or something that doesn’t matter in their lives. So administration building is, just practically speaking in ASG administration, the first step on day one.

Adarsh: Yeah, but we want to make sure that administration is full of people who dream big. I really want people to come in and potentially expand what ASG could be for the students, because right now, it’s not doing enough, as we’ve seen — so little that they have made a joke out of it. So, I feel like bringing in more students that have these big dreams, and we can try and temper them and actually implement them to ASG, that would be my dream. I just want anyone and everyone to apply.

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— Adarsh, Sisco win in second attempt at Associated Student Government presidency

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— With the ASG presidential election in full swing, meet the candidates in the running