Meet the 2022 Undergraduate Student Government candidates

This year’s Undergraduate Student Government elections turned out to be a roller coaster ride when two of the presidential candidates, Weston Bell-Geddes and Erica Wang, withdrew from the race earlier this month.

The news that there would only be one ticket on the ballot for the presidential spots initially shocked presidential candidate, Hannah Woodworth, and vice presidential candidate, Nivea Krishnan. Krishnan did not know whether running unopposed would delegitimize their efforts, she said.

“We’re still gonna go full force campaigning, like we’re not compromising on anything, because we are ultimately still trying to persuade people,” Krishnan said. “People shouldn’t think that they just have to vote for us out of obligation. We want to convince people and we want them to be excited about voting for us.”

Before the debate on Feb.18, hosted by Annenberg Media, two more tickets entered the race. Kyle Valdes and Safal Mengi are running on one platform, Rachel Lee and Collin Colson on another. The new candidates will not be on the ballot but students will be able to write them in to cast their votes for them. Voting will take place from Feb. 23 to Feb. 25. More information about the elections can be found on the Undergraduate Student Government website.

Ticket one

Hannah Woodworth is a junior majoring in journalism and minoring in law and public policy. She is running for USG president.

Woodworth was born and raised in Huntington Beach, California. She grew up with an older sister and a younger brother, being the middle child played an important role in becoming who she is today, said Woodworth. She described her family being very close as they would always do something together on the weekends. Her upbringing made her family-oriented, she said.

Woodworth began her advocacy work when she was 16 years old. She worked as an intern in a congressional campaign and spent her sophomore year in Washington, D.C. for Congressman Mondaire Jones of New York. But it was the 2016 election that drove her to get involved with the student government at USC. Donald Trump’s rise to power and policies made her realize the importance of politics.

“Hearing the language that [Trump] spoke with, and how it was just defamatory, or just hurtful and harmful to so many people, I realized that I really wanted to stand for something that was contrary to what he stands for and that’s what made me get involved with politics,” Woodworth said.

Woodworth currently works as an executive aide for USG President Alexis Areia. She helps make meeting agendas and day-to-day functions for the organization. But what motivated her to want to run was the university’s response to everything that happened with the fraternity Sigma Nu back in October, Woodworth said. She recalled the time at the town hall when USG invited administrators to have an open discussion about the sexual assault allegations at Greek life.

“As somebody who has friends who have experienced sexual assault and other forms of just abuse, that was really important to me,” Woodford said. “I really wanted to hold our administration accountable to what they were saying that they were going to do.”

Nivea Krishnan is a sophomore majoring in public policy and economics. She is currently a senator and running for vice president of USG, alongside Woodworth. The pair met while working at USG as they would often run into each other.

Krishnan was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was raised in Arizona. Her Indian culture played a huge part in her upbringing and identity, as both of her parents are of Indian descent. She practiced Indian classical dance for about 11 years. Krishnan described her family’s creativity as an important part of her upbringing and inspiration to explore her individuality.

“I think every person of color has their own sort of process that they go through when they’re growing up, because we grew up in a very white society and so you have a lot of little things that you don’t really know how to [connect] with your identity,” Krishnan said.

Krishnan was involved in her speech and debate club throughout high school. She was president her senior year and also captain of debate events, where she would train others. Passionate to inspire others and to help them achieve their goals, she decided to go into policy where she would debate topics and would research policies such as universal basic income, or international policy about foreign military aid.

Krishnan’s passions followed her to USC where she ran for senate during her freshman year and won. One of the challenges that she came across from early on was trying to make a difference while the administration had the final say. Her vision was not to simply have meetings with the admin, but to be persuasive and make them hear the students’ needs, Krishnan said.

“I want to try and help existing student advocacy, and really make advocacy, something that admin cannot ignore,” Krishnan said. " What I’m really going for is making student government less of a government, per se, and more of just like a platform for student voice.”

Woodworth and Krishnan’s mission is to “prioritize and amplify community voices by creating consistent opportunities for active student engagement,” according to their website. They are advocating for a campus that will have accountability, accessibility and advocacy for raising awareness and creating a better connection between students’ needs and administrators.

Some of their plans are expanding the Free Lyft program for student safety, to create a stricter standard for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), to work with the administration and provide an annual campus audit of structural evaluation, professor surveys and Office of Student Accessibility Services (OSAS) student feedback. Their main goal is to create a stronger relationship between students and USG, so if elected they plan on having a table set on Trousdale weekly to connect with students.

“So when students walk to class we’re out there, they see us...just greater visibility,” Woodworth said. “They could ask questions, talk to [us], just to create an even greater culture of transparency, but also just greater visibility as well.”

Ticket two

Kyle Valdes is a junior majoring in science and business administration. He is running for the USG presidency.

Valdes was born and raised in Miami, Florida. His grandparents migrated to Miami from Cuba when Fidel Castro took over. He described his family and upbringing as a loving environment where he learned to not take anything for granted and appreciated everyone he came across with.

The first time Valdes went into politics was when he was a sophomore in high school. He noticed that the same group of people were running and becoming part of student government every year and he wanted to change that. After running for president and losing his sophomore year, he ran again his junior year and won with about 75% of the votes, according to Valdes.

“I knew that I was going to be representing over one thousand students, and I wanted to introduce myself to every single one of them to hear what they had to say,” Valdes said. “I did everything I possibly could. I came out with a song, and came out with funny posters. I handmade 500 buttons.”

About two years into USC, he saw a similar pattern where the same people would get elected to USG. Valdes decided to run for office but initially missed the Dec. 17 deadline. The only option left was to still run but be a write-in candidate.

“Over my past two and a half years at USC, I’ve seen constantly, my own peers be failed by the structure that has been set in place,” Valdes said. “I’m here to create a fair and equitable experience for every single USC experience, so that we can all collectively have the most fun possible and get the most out of what a true USC experience should look like, and create a more real SC.”

Safal Mengi is a junior majoring in real estate development and is running for the USG vice presidency, alongside Valdes.

Mengi was born and raised in Sacramento, California but his family and his older sister were all born in India. Mengi described his upbringing among diverse communities such as Indians and Hispanics. Mengi recalls growing up in a supportive family and with “great people” around him.

Mengi was intrigued with politics after he took a government class as a freshman in high school and became a delegate for his advisory. By the time he was a sophomore, he was elected as a student board member and when he was a senior he was in charge of his high school’s social media account as a communications officer. Through this work, he learned to push against the administration.

During high school, he also dealt with bullying. Some students would make fun of the way he walked, or they would spread fake rumors about him. Mengi said he did not let that stop him and over time when people got to know him they were more accepting. This is why Mengi wants to bring more community fairs.

“You can’t take away people’s preconditioned notions,” Mengi said. “We need to do a better job of providing people with those experiences and integrating them and making them go to these community fairs and giving them excitement giving them something exciting to go for an opening where they can meet people.”

Mengi decided to run because he saw several things that he wanted the student government to push for, including lower tuition. Both Valdes and Mengi’s platform is aiming to integrate students and increase campus culture. Some examples are that they are looking at giving transfer and international students more advocacy. Some of the changes include expanding the Free Lyft zone, advocating for a larger USG budget and creating a system where entire fraternities or sororities do not get penalized for the action of an individual. They also plan to get rid of the two-factor identification system.

“If you feel like our USG is doing a bad job of representing us,” Mengi said. “Then why would you vote for candidates that are currently a part of that system and haven’t done that for the entirety of the year?”

Ticket three

Rachel Lee is a junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law and is running for the USG presidency.

Lee was born in Washington, D.C. but her life had several unexpected turns and moved a lot. After her parents divorced, she moved with her father to South Korea, then to Seattle, Washington. She grew up overall in a white middle class community and identifies from Portland, Oregon, as this was the place where she spent the last five years of her life.

As an only child, Lee recalls not having many friends as they would move from one place to another. She discovered that moving frequently was a universality that connected people. In every place there would be people who she could trust, or not trust and willing to help you and love you or not, she said.

“It did broaden my mind in a sense,” Lee said. “Unlike someone who might have stayed in one place their whole life, they might not feel the danger and they might not feel that urgency of change needs to happen now and if you keep on putting it off, it might never come. So therefore, you have to live with as much intensity and rigor and vigor as possible.”

Lee decided to go into politics while she was working at a gas station with a conservative Republican who would often express a dislike of immigrants. This made Lee see a “weird dichotomy” of different politics among people. During high school, she became part of the constitutional law team where she gained experience in debates and public speaking. Lee considered running for USG, but started her campaign in an unconventional way.

“I decided to run initially a joke campaign against the formal candidates who were approved in December,” Lee said. “Then the ballot became unopposed because the other team dropped out due to mental health issues, which is totally reasonable, and then I realized that I actually had a chance because this essentially became a two party election, between the establishment and the anti-establishment.”

Lee realized that this was a time for her to stand for her principles, for example, she wants to abolish Greek life, lower tuition and to have communal refrigerators. Lee also focuses on encouraging efforts to reverse gentrification and to create space for a greater presence of East Asian ideas while allowing smoking on campus.

One of the changes she proposes is to make the pelican as the bird representing USC. Lee said that students should vote for their platform if they are unsatisfied with the performance of USG in past years.

“As a queer person of color, I think that we need to see people who understand what it means to be different,” Lee said. “It’s important to see that kind of person in a position of power and really like putting your money down where your words lie. When you talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, what does that really mean if you’re electing the same people every year?”

Collin Colson is a sophomore majoring in writing for screen and TV and running for the USG vice presidency.

He grew up in the Bay Area, close to San Jose, and described his upbringing with two loving parents, his little brother and a dog. Colson was first intrigued with politics in eighth grade during the 2016 election.

“Donald Trump was certainly something that we had never seen before,” Colson said. “When he announced his presidency, right out of the gate, he’s talking about how Mexicans are rapists and criminals coming over the border.”

Colson was triggered by Trump’s campaign and the way he expressed himself against the Mexican community. Growing up in California, where there is a large Mexican population, many of his friends were Mexican and it appalled him hearing someone from the highest office making what he thought were derogatory statements.

But it wasn’t until Colson’s sophomore year of high school where he started getting more into political theory and what his own values are. His relationship with politics was deepened as he would listen to political philosophy podcasts while working at Jamba Juice.

It all came together for Colson when Lee asked him to step in and help when her initial running mate had to drop out. Colson’s beliefs aligned with Lee’s as he also mentioned getting rid of Greek life.

“There are things I’m very passionate about, not just because it affects me, but because it affects the student body that I want to make changes about,” Colson said. “I’ll just go really hard at it, because I’m doing it for other people.”

Lee’s and Colson’s platform aims to bring the student body closer to USG and more familiar with the student government. Their agenda includes abolishing fraternities, installing communal refrigerators, lowering tuition costs, ending hidden fees in the academic process and advocating for a greater presence of the East Asian community.