The USC Undergraduate Student Government (USG) announced on the evening of Feb. 23 that Alexis Areias and Lucy Warren were elected as the president and vice president, respectively, for the 2021-22 school year. Results are preliminary and still need to be confirmed by professional staff.
This year, 3529 students casted their vote, around one thousand less than last year with a 26% decrease in voter turnout. The Areias-Warren duo took the lead with 1,902 votes, 53.9% of the total number of votes, followed by Shreya Chaudhary and Antonio Okeke at 928 votes, 26.3% of the total votes. Alexandra Gill and Del Wood came in last with 552 votes, 15.6% of the total number of votes.
“We have been looking forward to implementing everything we talked about and now it feels possible,” Warren said of their win in an interview with Annenberg Media. “I think that gives me a little bit of feeling of hope during a really stressful time.”
The pair emphasized setting up a COVID-19 task force, Title IX reforms and facilitating communication with student organizations as well as the wider student body.
“Our COVID-19 appointment is obviously the first thing on our list,” Areias said. She noted that USC “doesn’t really have go-to point people for COVID-19 with students,” and hopes to establish a student-led task force within the student government.
The planned task force, Areias said, will ensure that programming will be conducted in a safe way, and provide students who don’t feel comfortable coming back on campus in the fall with online resources and mental health resources.
As a USG senator, Areias acknowledged a “disconnect” between the student government and the student body, and proposes to bridge the gap via an opt-in text service, a legislative tracker, giving weekly COVID updates and more. “We’re making it as easy as possible for students to get information,” she said.
“I think there’s so many ways that students are just unaware of all of the good things that USG is doing and vice versa,” Warren added. The duo aims to produce videos explaining how USC works, budget transparency and more.
The communication efforts extend to student organizations. Areias envisions a restructuring plan for USG, which includes building lines of communications with organizations, expanding the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council and creating new positions for cultural assemblies to strengthen collaboration.
The duo will continue advocating for increased student involvement in administrative decisions. They want a student to be on the board of trustees, an Engelmann student advisory board and an undergraduate student advisory council with university administration on the council. “It’s not just about the two of us, but bringing in student voices from all across campus and bridging these gaps in communication,” Areias said.
This year’s virtual campaigning posed special challenges for the two. “We were on different time schedules – Lucy was two hours ahead,” Areias said. She remarked that though campaigning virtually gave them a unique reach and approach, it was hard to connect with people.
Separately, the Election Commission determined in a verdict on Feb. 21 that Gill and Wood had violated Election Code XIIID, after student Bella Robakowski alleged the pair of spreading false and misleading information with the student body about Areias, Warren and Chaudhary.
“This is a stressful time. It brings out a lot of maybe not the best sides of us that we would hope to be promoting,” Areias said in response to the ruling. “And so I assume that would just be another side of that, but we move on from that.”
The result of the senatorial race was also announced the same night. Hana Li topped the race with 1,433 votes, followed by Arie Abija with 1415 votes. They will be joined in the 2021-22 Senate by Nivea Krishnan, Ruben Romeo, Hunter Hinson, Matthew Ayala, Kevin Gutierrez, Tommy Nguyen, Russell Agustin, Diego Andrades, Devin Ayala and Brian Stowe.