The HUB

ASUW and GPSS Elections Results

ASUW and GPSS elections are held in May of each school year and they are exciting times for student government at UW. This year, ASUW held their elections May 8-10, and GPSS held their elections on May 17 and May 31.

ASUW elections were announced on Thursday, May 11, on the front porch of the HUB. 4,718 students voted in this year’s election (approximately 15% of the undergraduate population) which exceeded last year’s voter turnout. There were two students who waged a campaign for President and Vice President, in addition to one complete “ticket” for this year. That ticket, “Husky Purpose,” celebrated their victory that evening due to the announcement that their candidates won every position. The 2017-18 ASUW President, Osman Salahuddin, notes that “it was so fun engaging with students…now it has culminated into this one awesome time where the entire team won, and I am just really excited to serve the campus community!” Husky Purpose’s platform was “Empower. Engage. Enrich.” The notion of reaching out to non-traditional and underrepresented students was a main focus of their platform, and will continue going into next year. “I want to make sure that students feel safe on campus, but also make sure they feel accepted,” says Salahuddin.

ASUW BoD 2017-18

Picture courtesy of The Daily

2017-18 Board of Directors (pictured above):

  • President: Osman Salahuddin
  • Vice President: Julia Pham
  • Director of Campus Partnership: Anna Johnson
  • Director of Internal Policy: Bo Goodrich
  • Director of Diversity Efforts: Kendra Canton
  • Director of Community Relations: Shawntel Bali
  • Director of Academic/Administrative Affairs: Navid Azodi
  • Director of Programming: Ian O’Keefe

Not pictured above are the other members of the Board of Directors for 2017-18:

  • Director of Finance and Budget: Joshua Fuller
  • Director of Personnel: Kaitlyn (KP) Pahler
  • Director of Communications: Brittany Pham
  • ASUW Senate Vice Chair: Madison Kunzman

GPSS held their elections May 10 and May 31, and it was quite lively this year. This year’s process had the largest number of candidates in the last five years, which generated energetic debates at the respective election days. For the first time in recent memory…perhaps in GPSS history…and to everyone’s surprise, there was a tie for President after three rounds of Instant Run-Off Voting which necessitated the second election in order to break the tie. Asad Haris, GPSS Elections Chair, was understandably surprised by the tie, especially considering that this might have been a “first” for GPSS, but he and his Elections Committee colleagues handled the situation with great skill and effort.

The GPSS Officers for 2017-18 are:

  • President
  • Soh Yeun (Elloise) Kim (English)
  • Vice President for Internal Affairs
  • Tori Hernandez (Evans School)
  • Vice President for External Affairs
  • Matt Munoz (Evans School)
  • Treasurer
  • Brad Copenhaver (Foster School)
  • Secretary
  • Giuliana Conti (Music)
Candidates for 2017-18 GPSS Officers

Candidates for 2017-18 GPSS Officers