When we decided that we were going to run for Student Body President and Vice President, the first thing we discussed wasn’t our platform; it was how we wanted to use our prior USG experience and knowledge to further the platform and ideas of others. As your President and Vice President, we believe that your agenda is our agenda, and we wanted to write our platform as such.

Over the course of the three weeks prior to elections, we met with more than 20 student groups to hear what they’d like to see from our leadership next year.

That process was, in a word, inspiring. Never have we felt more proud to be Pioneers than when we heard our peers passionately tell us what makes their time at DU great, and what would make it better. Though many amazing ideas spurred from those conversations, we were consistently hearing the same four things from each meeting: change the status quo of sexual assault, school spirit, alcohol safety and campus safety, and relationships with administrators.

While we appreciate the sentiments in the Opinions article from April 28 about our ideas and priorities, we respectfully disagree with the idea that our priorities are out of order, because there was no order of importance: our platform itself, in its entirety, is our priority. We agree with the author that students’ well-being is not dictated by free hockey tickets. That is why in the next year we will be giving equal dedication to all four tenants of our platform.

Last week, Jess went to Washington DC and met with the Colorado Delegation about current and future efforts to eradicate sexual assault. This week, we are working with the outgoing secretary of traditions to get started on our hockey ticket initiative. And the week after that, we hope to be in conversations with campus safety about detox policies. As for today, we write to give our word that we will continue to give equal and concerted effort to our entire platform — everything we have told you we plan to accomplish next year is our priority, not just what is at the top of the page.

If you have questions or concerns about our plans and priorities for next year, we would love to discuss them. Please email us at usg@du.edu.