The morning of April 27, Undergraduate Student Government (USG) elections for the 2020-2021 academic year opened. All students were emailed their personalized ballots, and they should contact duusgbusiness@gmail.com if the incorrect class or department was included in their form. The candidates’ platforms can be found here, and voting will close on Friday, May 1st at 2 p.m. MDT.
To help inform students’ decisions during this time, The Clarion sat down and got to know the presidential and vice presidential candidates for each ticket. In this in-depth interview, Abdul Ayad and June Churchill discuss their platform issues, their thoughts about DU and their campaign.
Their policy issues can be found here and their list of over a dozen endorsements can be found here. To find more in-depth explanation and exploration of their platform issues, you can visit their website and Instagram.
This interview has been edited for clarity and cohesion. To read our interview with the competing ticket, Ryan Hyde and Dajah Brooks, click here.
Isaiah: What is something that USG has done well, and what is something USG has done poorly?
June: We tried to focus on ways to bolster our activist movements with well-timed resolutions from USG. I think something that we’ve done well this year has been getting more symbolic resolutions passed. Our Senate doesn’t have a whole lot of actual power. So I think what’s been very effective has been getting those symbolic pieces of legislation passed, like the Divest DU resolution that we passed unanimously and I co-authored. We also passed one around textbook funding. There are two recent resolutions around COVID-19, both of which I was a co-sponsor on.
Abdul: One significant issue that we’ve noticed across USG that people don’t know that USG exists or they don’t know what is taking place. One thing that we definitely want to tackle, if elected, is publicity and promotion because we want to see USG grow. People don’t know about it, so there’s all of these uncontested races. There are senators who are literally switching their positions midway, so that they can get an uncontested race. At that point, you have to question: are you actually running for the position? Thankfully, Lisl (USG Election Commissioner) has done a great job with promoting elections this year. But because of so many uncontested races, I’ve seen a lot of inefficiency in USG. I feel like USG can definitely be more efficient in the work that we’re doing.
Isaiah: You’ve committed to making DU more affordable. You’ve spoken about lobbying administrators to implement tuition locks, discounting parking passes, reducing the price of textbooks and increasing printing allocations. Do you see a place for tuition reduction? If so, how are you trying to implement this?
June: In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have lower tuition in the first place. However, we don’t live in that world. DU, unfortunately, is tuition-run. Every year, they’re always trying to balance finances. They’ve got a lot of individuals here who can pay full tuition, so by increasing tuition on them, they get extra revenue they can use to pay professor salaries and financial aid. But it also has that secondary effect of looking bad for incoming students and costing more for a lot of people who don’t have the ability to afford that.
A tuition freeze is an easier sell because you’re not asking DU to lose money, but it’s also a sustainable PR move. If we had a tuition freeze, you would have increased retention rates throughout college. DU would maintain its revenue from that.
DU desperately needs to change their brand image. Research has been done, and most people come here because they just need to get a degree from somewhere. As a result, there’s a lot of people who don’t donate because they don’t feel strongly connected to the school.
By instituting a tuition freeze or tuition lock-in, we start to redefine our brand image by putting our money where our mouth is—we show that we support students and we care deeply about our community. I believe we’ll build a larger donor base, not just in attending students but also the people who see the university making positive change.
That’s all from a business argument. From a moralistic or ethical argument, this should have been done 10 or 15 years ago.
Isaiah: Do you think DU is a racist school?
Abdul: DU is very ignorant and right on the boundary of racism. DU knows that these are issues. DU knows that “Pioneer” is a controversial nickname. DU knows that marginalized students are having a tough time. We know they do because we bring up these demands every single year. At some point, you have to ask yourself: why are they not responding? Is it from a business standpoint? POCs only make up 20 percent of the student population, so maybe they think, “We don’t really need to spend money on making that small percentage happy when we have a much larger percentage who are still content with DU.”
At that point, that starts to become racist because there’s a small percentage of students asking for respect. DU ignores it because they don’t have to care about it.
June: In the same year we were founded, the Sand Creek Massacre happened. John Chivington, who actually committed the massacre, is on our charter. He is a founder of this institution. We are tied in multiple ways to the Sand Creek massacre.
When did the “Pioneer” name originate? Where did it come from? Did it start back in the 1860s when there were actually pioneers and settlers coming through Colorado? No, that name only came about in the 1920s. That name came about at the time when racism was really re-surging in America. This name did not come about as a result of innocent dreams and hopes about exploration. It came about specifically as a result of white supremacy.
There’s also the excuse that people use: “Oh, that’s just stuff from decades ago.” But we see very real ways in which that harm extends to today. We see that, for example, with the book of Christian history. When we were still Colorado Seminary, a Methodist family granted the school a book about the history of Christianity. It was bound in the flayed skin of an American Indian who was murdered in the late seventeen hundreds. That was kept on display in the Iliff Library until the late 1970s. It, by the way, wasn’t taken down voluntarily by Iliff. The American Indian Movement, along with a bunch of activists and professors, had to actively lobby the administration.
The harm didn’t stop in the 1860s. It didn’t stop in the 1920s. That harm hasn’t stopped on campus today.
Isaiah: What initiatives are you most excited to start working on?
Abdul: I think what we’re most excited about is actually being present in the community. In my three years of being at DU, I’ve seen every presidential candidate use the diversity and inclusive excellence speech, get their votes, and then do nothing about it.
I’m excited for the people who are backing us to see that we’re actually doing what we promised. I am most excited about doing more diversity initiatives for this campus and improving the actual diversity and inclusive excellence that DU prides itself on.
Isaiah: What is something you’ve done that you are especially proud of?
Abdul: Got an A in Calc 1. Honestly, I am proud of who I have become. I was born in Libya, moved to England, moved to Libya again and then moved to America. That put a lot of stress and strain on me.
I personally grew so much these last three years, learning people’s identities and how to respect people. I grew up in a strict Muslim household from Libya. Looking back at that now, I was not the leader that I am today. I’m only the person I am thanks to the experiences that I went through. I’m proud that I managed to grow..
June: I’m also incredibly proud of who I am today. I think I am completely unrecognizable from who I was five years ago. Being trans, this is in more ways than one. It is more than just mental growth; I’m also a lot hotter.
Back in the day, I was going through the worst of my depression. I was having anxiety breakdowns pretty much on a weekly basis in high school. It wasn’t just anxiety but also dysphoria. That was the lowest of the low for me. But in a moment of ultimate pain where just existing in myself made me hate every aspect of things, I reached out for help.
Isaiah: What do you admire most in your running mate?
Abdul: I have so much respect for June because of the work she’s done, especially from her background. She is so involved in so many aspects. She says what she means, and she does what she says. It’s very rare to see someone who’s like, “This needs to change.” She is by far one of the most vocal and active senators, and she’s not even a committee chair.
June: Abdul has managed to create an efficient and powerful organization. He’s managed to create an amazing force for change on campus. Being in the room when we were an actually reformed Diversity Committee, helping create Abdul’s position for Diversity Inclusive Excellence Chair, that was amazing. There is no one who I’d be more happy with in that role because he has the organizational know-how to bring people together across an insane range of diversity of identity and experience and make them an effective force for change.
Isaiah: What have you been up to in quarantine? Do you miss anything about being on campus?
Abdul: Human connection! I’ll be watching TV shows and movies, and they’ll be high fiving each other and giving each other hugs. I’m like, “Wow, must be nice, right?”
I think one thing I was sad about was the prayer space in the library that was supposed to be happening this quarter. It is going to happen next winter now. Hopefully, if the campus is open.
June: I have been doing my best to get into D&D campaigns. I am actually running three one-shots. I have been doing a lot of writing for that.
Isaiah: How will you judge whether your presidency and vice presidency was a success or failure?
June: I think we should be judged by who we bring into the rooms with us when we get our foot in the door. We can’t force the entire door open. So I would judge myself less on what work we individually do and more on who we manage to get into rooms that weren’t there previously.
If you have any comments or concerns regarding how this was covered, email duclarioneditoralteam@gmail.com.
