Justine Hastings decided to run for president of Syracuse University’s Student Association after she met with members of the Board of Trustees.

While speaking in February with the Board of Trustees Special Committee on University Climate, Diversity and Inclusion, Hastings brought up problems with the confidentiality and safety of the LGBT Resource Center, Disability Cultural Center and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. The three centers currently share a space in Bird Library. 

Hastings realized then how little the trustees know about the physical setup of the school they represent, she said.

“If we have students in positions who are passionate about (these issues), who are really personally affected by them, (the trustees) are really willing to listen,” she said. 

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Hastings, a junior majoring in secondary English education and English and textual studies, is running for SA president alongside vice presidential candidate Ryan Golden, a junior majoring in religion, policy studies and political science. 

The duo is running on five platforms: support for marginalized communities, campus accessibility, financial accessibility, SA accountability and student voice. 

Hastings and Golden plan to request that the Board of Trustees amends its bylaws to allow the SA president and SA-elected student representative — who both currently attend meetings with the trustees — to each have half a vote on campus issues.  

“We just think it’s important that students have a vote in the most powerful governing body on this campus considering we’re the most important constituents on this campus,” Hastings said. 

Including a student vote on the Board of Trustees stems from the demands of the #NotAgainSU movement, Hastings and Golden said. The pair supports all of the movement’s demands. 

The movement, led by Black students, has protested SU’s response to a series of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic incidents that have occurred at or near campus since November. Organizers held a sit-in at the Barnes Center at The Arch for eight days in November and occupied Crouse-Hinds Hall for 31 days beginning Feb. 17. 

Organizers presented Chancellor Kent Syverud with a list of 19 demands in November. Syverud agreed to 16 of the demands and revised the remaining three. #NotAgainSU later negotiated with SU administration on a revised list of demands in March, but the two parties did not reach a resolution.

“We need to acknowledge the time we’re in,” Hastings said. “We’re not just going to pretend that #NotAgainSU didn’t happen and that there are students who expressed great upset for how they feel on this campus.” 

Hastings and Golden also plan to leverage access to the Board of Trustees to help make SU more financially accessible to all students. In support of #NotAgainSU, the pair will encourage the Board of Trustees to either freeze tuition or create more tuition assistance programs, like scholarships for marginalized communities, Hastings said. 

“We want a more diverse campus, and one of the ways to do this is in terms of an economic pool, having students from more economic backgrounds,” Hastings said.

As low-income students, Hastings and Golden have both faced financial struggles while working on campus. 

“Financial accessibility, we admit, is an ambitious and big platform, but it’s also an important and much needed one,” Hastings said. “We’ll be able to fight for it with a passion because we’ve gone through it ourselves.” 

Golden wouldn’t have been able to afford SU’s tuition without working as a residential adviser. SU’s financial aid office needs to be restructured and should communicate better with students, he said.

Hastings lost her job in Bird Library halfway through her sophomore year. It was an extremely uncertain and scary time to go through, and it created a lot of burdens for her and her family, she said.

If elected, the pair aims to expand textbook affordability, create additional non-federal work study jobs and increase student employees’ salaries. 

“We want students to be able to live here, not just survive here,” Hastings said. “(They should) not have to feel like they’re overburdening themselves with multiple jobs and gigs just in order to sustain themselves on campus.”

As SA president and vice president, Hastings and Golden would work to increase accessibility for all students on campus, they said.

Having both worked as RAs, Hastings and Golden said they understand and have heard of the difficulties students with disabilities experience during the housing process. The pair plans to work with the university to make all campus buildings accessible.  

Hastings and Golden will further past SA initiatives to address both mental health issues and the importance of mental health, they said.

They plan to expand SU’s absence policy to allow students three excused mental health absences each semester. The duo also wants to create a portal on the Office of Disability Services website to hold professors accountable for violating the office’s policies.

“We also understand that disability isn’t just about the physical, it’s about the mental and the invisible,” Hastings said. 

Hastings and Golden aim to address sexual assault and violence at SU and bring Callisto, a third-party sexual assault reporting system, to campus. The system extends to dating violence and stalking and would allow survivors to remain anonymous when reporting any form of sexual assault or harassment, Golden said.

Callisto also includes a matching system that would tell a student if someone else has reported the same individual, Golden said. He and Hastings want to work with the university’s Title IX office and the Department of Public Safety to implement the program at SU.

“We see that there is a need and that it is effective,” Hastings said. 

The candidates have recently faced criticism from SU’s College Republicans after co-authoring a draft resolution condemning the organization’s decision to invite Ben Shapiro, a popular conservative commentator, to speak on campus. 

Golden said he initially supported Shapiro’s attendance until he learned about biased comments Shapiro has made toward marginalized communities.

“Neither Justine nor I make it a point to keep up with Republican speakers in the world,” Golden said. “I had heard of Ben Shapiro, but I didn’t know everything about him, and I certainly didn’t know the comments that he had made.”

Shapiro’s tendency to antagonize others, especially people from marginalized groups, is Golden’s biggest concern with the commentators’s proposed visit to campus. Shapiro has repeatedly made racist remarks and purposefully misgendered transgender people, and he believes same-sex couples should not be allowed to get married or have children, Golden said. 

“Being Republican does not bother me. It’s when that becomes hatred that that bothers me,” Golden said. “I can’t in good conscience say that we are going to be a campaign of inclusivity and then say that we are going to bring speakers who will openly disrespect students.”

SU is currently evaluating whether it will resume on-campus classes for the fall 2020 semester. If campus does not reopen, Golden said he and Hastings would make SA meetings as publicly available as possible so communication with the student body remains accessible. 

Government and advocacy are not mutually exclusive, Hastings said. She and Golden will work to advocate for the student body as president and vice president, she said.

Working with students and campus organizations to hear their vision for SU is what Hastings is most looking forward to if elected president of SA. Golden is also excited to work with organizations on campus to implement his and Hastings’ campaign promises. 

“The university has strengths, but it also has weaknesses,” Hastings said. “We wanna build off those strengths in order to make the campus a better place. 

Voting for SA’s president, vice president and comptroller begins Monday on MySlice and continues until 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

Published on April 13, 2020 at 12:21 am

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan