The University of Michigan Central Student Government hosted candidates Thursday evening at Angell Hall ahead of the upcoming winter semester Assembly election. The event, titled “Meet The Candidates,” hosted about 20 U-M students, including the candidates and other CSG members. The candidates met each other and discussed their aims for candidacy at the event.
The Michigan Daily interviewed some of the candidates on their campaigns and plans for next semester. LSA junior Crystal Briskey is a parent student and a candidate for LSA Representative. Briskey told The Daily she hopes to represent the older students who are a minority on the Ann Arbor campus.
“My main goal as an older, nontraditional student, who is also a parent, is just to help represent a smaller group of people on campus that really don’t get a lot of representation,” Briskey said. “Just making sure that the University itself is able to make sure that we’re more inclusive towards student parents.”
Rackham student Erin Neely, who is running for Rackham Graduate School Representative, told The Daily she is passionate about representing a different minority group on campus: people affected by disabilities.
“I feel like a lot of the social events on campus aren’t for me and, especially as a person with a disability, that can be a problem,” Neely said. “I’d like to build more opportunities for undergraduates and graduate students to attend social events together and build a community network.”
Business freshman Taylor Peterson told The Daily she is running for Ross School of Business Representative because she wants the Business School to be more involved in the University’s sustainability goals, especially because the College of LSA named 2024 the “Year of Sustainability.”
“Overall, (the University) is a big school and we have a lot of opportunities to spend our money, use our resources and really help sustainability campus-wide,” Peterson said. “But I think that educating our student body about these initiatives … which will help lead to change and sustainability overall.”
Engineering freshman Ellie Grehan is running for College of Engineering Representative and said she is interested in bridging the gap between technical fields and creative ones. Grehan emphasized the importance of creating intersectional opportunities for students across majors.
“Bridging the gap between North Campus and Central Campus is a big part of my mission,” Grehan said. “So I would like to have events that would go on both campuses and encourage people who have never taken the bus up to North Campus to take the bus… (to) make the (University) feel more connected.”
CSG elections will be held from Nov. 28 to 30. Students will be able to vote for the candidates on vote.umich.edu. Rackham student Magda Wojtara, who is running for Rackham Graduate School Representative, said she hopes to see students vote in the winter semester elections.
“(The voting process is) super simple,” Wojtara said. “I would encourage you to check out the different platforms and really try to be informed on what your representatives are hoping to accomplish.”
Daily Staff Reporter Ji Hoon Choi can be reached at jicho@umich.edu. Daily News Contributors Ashley Shank and Margot Lavie contributed to the reporting of this article.