Vice Presidents

Candidates for the office of Vice President: Dalia Amin (Team Legacy), Eric Shellan (One Campus), and Sarah Chow (Husky Nation).

Current Positions: Dalia is the sitting ASUW Director of Diversity Efforts. In that office, Dalia coordinates the Joint Commission Committee and helps the Eight ASUW commissions bring their messages to the rest of campus. She also sits on the ASUW Board of Directors, where she helps bring diversity to the forefront of the ASUW.

Eric currently works in the Office of Government Relations as the Assistant Director. (Full disclosure, I am the current Director of the Office of Government Relations.) Eric's duties involve working on local lobbying efforts, like supporting the UPass and working to get real rental housing reforms, and supporting the Director's efforts in Olympia. Over the past year Eric has planned, or helped plan, several events (large and small) that helped students increase their voice in Olympia.

Sarah has, for the past two years, served as the Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of the ASUW. In that role she has directly observed, and assisted, in the process of selecting volunteers for the association. Her duties also involved a lot of front desk work, and meeting people as they came in to learn about what the ASUW is.

Strengths: Eric's strengths primarily come from two angles. First, his experience in OGR has given him a unique knowledge base among the candidates for VP. His previous experience with political campaigns has definitely helped sharpen his political skills and savvy. Secondly, his personality is very outgoing and exuberant, but restrained when necessary. He has a very strong skillset for political campaigning.

Sarah, at first, appears to be a rather weak candidate. She does not currently hold an elected office and is not overly involved with clubs or organizations on campus. That said, her years working in the ASUW front office as the VP's Administrative Assistant have allowed her to observe ASUW as it lives and breathes. She has watched, and facilitated, the daily grind from within the belly of the beast. Beyond that, Sarah is an extremely nice person who makes an effort to reach out to the people she meets and make them feel as if they were the center of the universe for the duration of their conversation.

Dalia brings a different kind of strength to the table. She is the only candidate for VP that currently sits on the Board, so she will be able to claim a kind of experience none of her competition can claim. Also, Dalia will be able to say that as the Director of Diversity Efforts she interacted daily with members of the most diverse communities the UW has to offer, and that as the Vice President she will be able to reach out to those communities to broaden the base of ASUW volunteers.

Weaknesses: Sarah's weakness is fairly obvious: her relative lack of experience. Sarah will have to convince the voters that she is more than a nice smile and a kind word. She will have to show that she is competent and has the skills to do the job.

Dalia has a similar weakness to Sarah's. She too has limited experience that is relevant to the duties of the Vice President, and she is the youngest of the candidates which will only enhance the image of a lack of experience. Dalia will have to show that she is capable in the general sense, and capable of doing this specific job.

Eric's weaknesses. This is a hard section to write simply because of the working relationship I have with Eric. As a candidate for VP, I think his primary weakness is that his experience base, while strong and deep, is not a good fit for the Vice President's duties. His skills are varied and strong, but they don't translate into finding a wide range of volunteers for the dozens, if not hundreds, of volunteer positions the ASUW holds. His platform, while full of good ideas, seems to focus on issues that are outside the scope of the Vice President. In fact, the only point on his platform that deals with the duties of the VP says that he will work to bring students to the table on University Decision making bodies, and at the State level. The other points on his platform are projects Eric has begun this year. These projects are good things, and the goals Eric lists are things we should fight for, but it appears that the delineated duties of the Vice President are being ignored. The only way to change the first weakness is for Eric to learn new skills. As he grows as an individual, his skillset will also grow. The second half, the lack of focus on the duties of the VP is a simple fix. Eric only has to tweak his platform and refocus a bit.