Mondaire Jones, our Exec VP, has just distributed a flier asking students to submit ideas for the name of the new Old Union eatery to olduniondining at gmail dot com. I can only imagine, after the results of the contest for naming Tresidder's cafeteria, that someone will suggest "Union Cubed," and that the naming committee will think it's just too cute to resist.

By the way, before we try to name it, how about telling us what's unique about it? If it's just another unhealthy Cyber Cafe-esque Stanford Dining attempt, let's not mince words with the name. "Fatty" or maybe "Freshman 15" will do.

Continue reading for the contest guidelines...

Well, it's too bad they don't have a Monday (June 18th) shuttle for us graduating seniors, but at least for everyone else, if the times work for you, the tickets are CHEAP!

Shuttles are running every hour to SFO:
Wednesday, June 13th, from 12PM to 6PM
Thursday, June 14th, from 5AM to 6PM, and
Friday, June 15th, from 5AM to 12PM

...and every two hours to San Jose:
Wednesday, June 13th from 12PM to 6PM
Thursday, June 14th from 5AM to 5PM, and
Friday, June 15th from 5AM to 11AM

The shuttles will stop at Marguerite stops from West campus housing to East campus housing. The full schedule and $5 tickets can be found at egroups.stanford.edu. Have a safe trip home!

The Stanford Spotlight has posted a cute video of the new ASSU Executives on their YouTube channel:

The Daily ran an article today on last night's ASSU Senate meeting with the headline, "Senate meeting mired in debate."

Um, isn't the ASSU Senate a deliberative body?

Maybe I'm downplaying the contention too much, but it seems to me that the actual news from the meeting was that, in fact, the new airport shuttle program to SFO and San Jose airports has been passed overwhelmingly by the Senate. This is an incredible cost-saving opportunity for students, in my opinion, and is something that I think puts our student government in a pretty good light. Nice work, guys.

I received this in my inbox from VP Mondaire Jones the other day. You should try to make it if you have any thoughts about how the OSA (or the upcoming new Old Union) could be better:

The Stanford Daily today printed an editorial with the headline, "ASSU Senators: Grow Up." Apparently, the editors thought better of that very provocative headline, and so the title of the online version appears as "A united ASSU Senate?"

The editors begin by saying that they were "disappointed to see divisive contention rear its ugly head again" in divided voting for Senate Chair and Deputy Chair (after such a close contest for ASSU Executive), but they then note that "beyond the hype of factionalism, senators who are endorsed by either [the Students of Color Coalition or the Review] expressed similar goals in their respective platforms."

The disturbing thing about this editorial is that the Daily is chiefly responsible for creating -- and maintaining -- this "hype of factionalism." The reporter assigned to cover the ASSU, Andrea Fuller, is widely rumored to dislike the Senate and apparently allows that to be reflected in her reporting.

Two possible examples of this stick out in my head. The first is the collapsing of the "divide" into two camps: SOCC-endorsed, and Review-endorsed. This is clearly inappropriate and was a characterization rejected by the Senators in the very 3-hour meeting the Daily loves to flaunt around as the epitome of breakdown in the Senate. The Review-endorsed candidates were endorsed also by the Stanford Democrats, the Band, the Queer-Straight Alliance, and others. Given the conservative Review's poor reputation on campus, its endorsement was nothing to be proud of. In fact, Senator Patrick Cordova, in his appeal to become Senate Chair, declared himself a Democrat and said that he applied for the Review endorsement to get help with fliering. Ultimately, the only people who can accurately be lumped into any sort of "Review" category are the two Senators that actually write for and run the paper: Luukas Ilves and Stuart Baimel. A small contingent, indeed.

To its credit, the Daily has occasionally noted that the labels don't really fit, but it still consistently falls back on those labels because of its desire to hype up the great "divide."

A second example of the hyping is the double-printing and mis-attribution of a quote by Senator Jonathan Kass on the 3-hour meeting. When he asked to change his vote for Deputy Chair, the ensuing uncertainty of the situation led him to call the situation a "circus," but the Daily reported him in its second printing of the quote as saying that the Senate was a "circus." In the second issue where the quote was printed, it was set apart from the text and printed in large type.

Do you think it's okay to offer students a free drink in exchange for a signature on a special fees petition? If you don't, then this was the graduate election scandal the Daily never covered.

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Corrections have been made to this entry. Please feel free to e-mail us at the address above any time you feel our journalistic pieces do not represent the facts accurately, and we will make the corrections to the entries as soon as we can. That's the power of modern technology!

This just in... Senate sources are telling me that, although Hershey Avula and Mondaire Jones have been certified as ASSU President and Vice President, the ASSU Elections Commissioner, Bernard Luis Fraga, said tonight that he is bound by the Constitution to hold another runoff vote between the Avula/Jones and Brett and Lakshmi slates.

The challenge springs from a Constitutional provision that provides for such a runoff when no executive slate is able to secure a majority of everyone who voted in the election. Because the election was so close and many voters did not select a choice for ASSU Executive (some suspect grad students who logged in only to vote on the Go Pass measure), the Avula/Jones slate does not have a majority of all those voting in the election, and therefore technically a new vote must be called. To clarify, the Avula/Jones slate did receive a majority from those who voted in the ASSU Executive category, but they did not receive a majority among the pool of voters that includes those who did not vote in the ASSU Executive category.

BUT (wow, I'm getting tired) a new runoff will not be held if two-thirds of both the Senate and the Graduate Student Council vote to overturn the Elections Commissioner. This evening, the Senate voted 12-1 to overturn, leaving the fate of the election in the hands of the GSC.

Even if the GSC concurs with the Senate and votes to overturn the Commissioner, supporters of Brett and Lakshmi may go forward with a Constitutional challenge based on the claim that the Constitution strictly mandates a majority of all those voting. However, the challenge would be politically weakened without the support of at least one of the governmental bodies, and the Constitutional Council would be less likely to vote to hold the runoff.

Yes, folks, it's true (see Daily article). This year, candidates endorsed by the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC) did worse in the election than they did last year (btw, is there no SOCC website?). Perhaps that's because student discontent rose sharply under the Coalition's dominance of the Senate and students wanted a change. That would explain the strong showing by the anti-Office of Student Activities slate, The Warm Weather Party.

Most likely, SOCC fared poorly because the Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA) decided for the first time to step into the race. QSA endorsed six candidates for Senate and -- that's right -- all six of them were elected. QSA's Special Fees request passed overwhelmingly with 72% of the vote, just below the Stanford Band. And -- get this -- QSA endorsed both Avula/Jones and Brett and Lakshmi, leaving students helpless to decide and leading to Avula/Jones' victory by less than 1%.

In the words of QSA President George Xander Morris, "They had the exact same platforms, literally — not to criticize them, but they just did."

So what will the Senate look like next year? Six Senators will be "students of color." Six will be "queers and/or fag hags." And the three leftover Senators are clearly straight and white (actually, only Tom Vacek claims to be straight and white).

Interestingly, the Senator who won the largest number of votes in the election was endorsed by neither SOCC nor QSA. The top vote-getter -- Eugene Nho -- was, in fact, endorsed by the Dems.

But let's be honest, folks. Were the endorsements really that big of a deal in the end? It should be clear to everyone that Eugene Nho won because of his witty and creative YouTube ad, which analogized the student body's struggles against the Office of Student Activities to the epic battle between the Spartans and the Persians at Thermopylae. No offense to the Dems, but endorsements really had nothing to do with it.

So, please. I don't want to hear about the Dems vs. Review vs. SOCC vs. The Gays. Let's get real. This election was a victory for YouTube.

Final Election/Endorsement ratio for each group:
QSA - 6/6 (100%); Band - 6/7 (86%); Dems - 4/6 (67%); Review - 7/13 (54%); SOCC - 6/13 (46%)

"We weren't expecting this!"

Full election results at http://elections.stanford.edu/ when the ASSU gets around to posting them.

Students poring over results

5:12 - ASSU Executive (Run-off Results):

Round 1
Avula/Jones - 1867
Submit - 136
Smith/Ladewig - 339
Brett and Lakshmi - 1715
The Warm Weather Party - 440
Submit eliminated first round

Round 2
Avula/Jones - 1883
Smith/Ladewig - 351
Brett and Lakshmi - 1739
The Warm Weather Party - 484
Aaron Smith and Kyle Ladewig eliminated second round

Round 3
Avula/Jones - 1957
Brett and Lakshmi - 1845
Warm Weather Party - 517
The Warm Weather Party eliminated third round

Round 4
Avula/Jones - 2030
Brett and Lakshmi - 1992
Avula/Jones is declared the winner

5:09

Eugene Nho smiles broadly after hearing news of his victory. His awesome YouTube ad clearly paid huge dividends as he was the top vote-getter.

New Undergraduate Senators (top 15 vote-getters):

Eugene Nho - 1364
Patrick Cordova - 1102
Waddie CrazyHorse - 878
Jonathan Kass - 768
Luukas Ilves - 766
Tom Vacek - 743
Jose Benchimol - 699
Stuart Baimel - 696
Ré Phillips - 651
Priyanka Sharma - 638
Vanku Kang - 621
Sarah Golabek-Goldman - 601
Corinne Prudhomme - 587
Andy Lomeli - 569
Esosa Ozigbo - 564

5:08 - Measure A: Constitutional Amendment passes with 87.44%; Graduate GO Pass Measure fails with 61%

5:08 - All undergrad special fees passed!!

5:08 - Comedy Night failed with only 47% of Graduate votes

5:08 All Joint Special Fees pass except for Stanford News Readership Program which failed because too many abstained from voting on it, although it did receive 53.61% support from those who did vote on it.

5:07 - ASSU General Fees - 0% increase in fee in both areas

5:05 Graduate Student Council winners (top 15 vote-getters):
District Winners
Shireen Baday (Law)
Yana Emmy Hoy (Medicine)
Fen Zhao (Natural Sciences)
Melahn Parker (Engineering)
Marja Mullings (Engineering)
George Bloom (Humanities)
Euan Robertson (Social Sciences)
Rhyan Uy (Business)
Kyle Anderson (Earth Sciences)
Heather Hough (Education)

At-Large Winners
Maxim Afanasyev (Business)
Hanna Muenke (Social Sciences)
Kristina Keating (Earth Sciences)
Zen Fan (Engineering)
Lan Wei (Engineering)

5:05 - Class President Slates
Sophomore - after 4 rounds of voting - The Giving Tree
Junior - (no competitors) - The Professionals
Senior - The Office

5:04 - 5848 voters, a 10% increase over 2006. 40% of all students voted. (1072 Freshmen, 875 Sophomores, 1019 Juniors, 634 Seniors)

5:02

Announcements begin. Record turnout this year. Record number of candidates. Good job candidates. "None of the campaigns were egregiously unfair."

5:00

CoHo is packed as announcements begin

4:58

Lakshmi Karra (center) and friends anxious as announcements are about to begin

4:52

Luukas Ilves looking Senatorial. "Like my father before me, I always wear a bow tie on election nights."

4:47 - Candidates wandering in

We'll be blogging live tonight from the CoHo as the winners and losers of the ASSU Election are announced.

For now, the Daily reports that there was a record turnout of --- 40% (about 6,000 students out of our roughly 15,000 voted).

With the race behind them, some slates looked back on the challenges and highlights of an intense campaign week.

Brett Hammon ‘08 said his slate worked to shed a positive light on ASSU candidates.

“A lot of people assume that everyone involved in the ASSU is a tool,” he said. “And while this is a pretty safe assumption most of the time, there are a good 15 percent of us who are not.

“I’m glad that I don’t have to watch my mouth anymore,” he added. “When I would cuss around voters, Lakshmi [Karra ‘08] would snap at me, ‘Brett, you can’t say that shit in public.’”

Online voting has begun. Visit http://ballot.stanford.edu/ to cast your votes!

Elections are today and tomorrow (the 11th and 12th), and results will be announced at 5:00PM on Friday. Check out the ASSU Elections website for more info.

The Dailyhas three big articles on the ASSU elections today.

The centerpiece is Christian Torres' article on the SOCC endorsement process. He takes a look at the controversy surrounding SOCC, and the relationship between Brett and Lakshmi, one of the two leading slates for ASSU Executive and SOCC. They, like Avula/Jones, discuss diversity in their platform, but SOCC has endorsed Avula/Jones.

A second article is about the endorsement process for three of the major student groups: SOCC, Stanford Democrats and the Queer-Straight Alliance (QSA). [Full disclosure: I have been endorsed by the Dems and QSA for my Senate campaign]. The endorsement processes are very different.

A third article notes that the Senate will be voting on a controversial resolution endorsing divestment from Israel.

The Stanford Review's Elections Issue came out a couple of days ago. They endorsed candidates for Senate and Executive, and wrote blurbs about all the Special Fees groups, although interestingly, did not give a simple thumbs up/thumbs down for them. All of their coverage can be found at Stanfordreview.org.

Write to the Registrar at registrar@stanford.edu

It was my sneaking suspicion that the Registrar would not be releasing (and making readily available) the results of its new Online Course Evaluations. E-mails to the Registrar's Office last week were replied to with simply "You can find some information on our website." Genius.

Today, the Daily confirmed that the Registrar currently has no plans to make the results available to students. It was always inexcusable that it is so hard to find out how students rate their professors, but now that the Course Evaluations are online and sport a 90% completion rate, it's a shame. Transparency should be the University's default, not its exception.

The ASSU must insist that the full results of Course Evaluations be made available to students, including at least a random sampling of student written comments.

I recently spoke with one of my favorite professors, democracy and Iraq expert Larry Diamond, about this lack of transparency from the administration. I was venting about how, in my opinion, the teaching in the Economics department is mediocre but that, like the rational economists they are, they would never improve unless they were given proper incentives -- i.e. the possibility of embarrassment -- by the availability of student ratings of the courses.

Professor Diamond was surprised that this information on the performance of professors and departments was not already available due to his leading of the original effort at the ASSU to get courses evaluated in the first place. When the Daily published its article today, I wrote to Professor Diamond and asked him to comment. Here's what he said (this letter should also be published in tomorrow's Daily):

I was disturbed to read today that the results of the course evaluations are not routinely and systematically made available to the student body. The current policy (or lack thereof) is ill-considered and indefensible for a number of reasons. The most obvious one is that students and their families are paying over $30,000 a year in tuition (or as much of that as they can possibly afford) for the privilege of taking these classes. The least that Stanford could do—and the minimum I think it is morally required to do—is to make this most fundamental piece of consumer information available to students before they spend something like $3,000 on a class.

Related to this is the difficulty students have in making informed choices about classes and professors. Four years go by very quickly for a Stanford undergraduate. There are often painful opportunity costs to taking one course instead of another. In terms of maximizing the quality and richness of their undergraduate experience, students should have as much information at their disposal as possible.

Say "Yes" to Nho for ASSU Senate. For more, check out his Facebook group.

Please feel free to check out our website at: http://www.assuexecutive.com. Thanks!

We, Hershey Avula and Mondaire Jones, are immensely excited by the possibility of serving as your ASSU President and Vice President. We take the important responsibilities of advocating on behalf of students to Stanford’s Administration; hosting quality programming throughout the year that reaches out to and positively impacts the entire student body; and strengthening all branches of the ASSU through our proven management skills very seriously. More seriously, many have said, than others who have never shown a real interest in student advocacy or in certain campus organizations, until it was time to declare their candidacies.

Equally as important as our demonstrated commitment to students is another quality that elevates the Avula/Jones slate above the competition: experience that matters. Our involvement in the ASSU, which began in the very beginning of our respective freshman years, ranges from social sector organizations like Frosh Council to leadership positions in the more advocacy-oriented Undergraduate Senate. No other slate has this advocacy experience.

Our expert knowledge of and experience navigating through the internal workings of the ASSU does not hinder our ability to notice and to rectify the failures of the ASSU. Instead, we have the totally unique advantage of having worked alongside this year’s, and past, ASSU Executives with critical eyes over their failures and successes. The insights we have gained over this period have enabled us to think outside of the box, and to devise a number of original yet achievable proposals that you can read about in our platform. Simultaneously, the excellent working relationships we have established with Administrators over the past few years affords us greater leverage in advocating the interests of the student body with Administrators. One example of this is when we collaborated with other ASSU officials to pressure Administrators into re-instituting the original plans for Old Union, which included more student space.

My name is Sarah Golabek-Goldman and I am running for Undergraduate Senate. As a Senate Associate on the Communications and Advocacy Committees this year, I investigated new ways to improve communication between ASSU and the student body. In addition, I met with Bing Overseas Studies Program to broaden international study opportunities. While serving on the ASSU, I have learned how important it is to create student policies and programs that are practical and have a positive impact on Stanford students.

As a senator, one of my top priorities will be to make books more accessible to the student body. Under the existing system at Green Library, a professor must pay the cost himself if he wants to put an additional textbook on reserve. As a result, there is an inadequate amount of books on reserve and students who rely on these textbooks are academically disadvantaged. Next year, I plan to work with Access Services at Green Library in order to help reform the reserve policy so that students who cannot afford textbooks do not have to compete for books on reserve during exam week and are able to check them out for more than two hours.

Next year, I will promote sustainability by encouraging Stanford Dining and additional row houses to adopt environmentally friendly programs. In addition, I will investigate gender-blind housing and educate student groups about funding opportunities.

I believe that students should have a strong voice on campus. If elected, I will push for the ASSU website to be updated on a regular basis. In addition, I will set up more suggestion boxes around campus so that students can share their concerns and ideas with the Undergraduate Senate.

I have been endorsed by the Stanford Democrats, JSA, QSA and Stanford Review.

Thank you so much for your support. Please contact me at goldman2@Stanford.edu with any comments or suggestions!

In the midst of all the flyers and banners on campus, and all the other miscellaneous advertisements (indeed, this is the...5th post of a Senate candidate advertising on the Blog), you might be overwhelmed or increasingly indifferent to more publicity. But, still, I feel compelled to display my reasons for running and try to convey the type of person I am.
Now I know some of you simply might not care about the Senate, and don't want your blog polluted by these ad's. So I'm not going to say any more, on this main page.
If you are interested in my campaign, click the "view more" button below".

My name is Stuart Baimel and I am pleased to be running for Senate this year. I recognize that the ASSU cannot do everything, and promising policies that will never happen (despite student-government promises every year, Dead Week remains alive) is not the best way to go about this campaign. Instead, I want to focus on policy issues that have a significant and attainable impact on student life.

One of my primary objectives for next year's Senate is to promote the arts. I've spoken to the members of many arts groups, large and small, and the two complaints I hear over and over again are a lack of funding, and partially as a result of that, difficulty with publicity. I believe that the ASSU next year can do a far better job of funding the arts, a sphere of campus life that should not have the funding problems that it currently does. The ASSU, in addition, has a formidable publicity apparatus that could easily be used to promote arts events such as performances, SOCA's Art Affair, and ongoing exhibits.

You can vote for up to 15 Senators! You can make the difference!

With over three years of experience in student government and leadership, I know what it takes to be a successful student representative. I am extremely efficient, reliable and professional. As you may have witnessed at the 2007 Mid-Year Convocation, I am an enthusiastic and passionate public speaker. I promise to be very dedicated to my position in the Undergraduate Senate, just as I was to my Frosh Council Presidency.

Former Frosh Council President; Stanford Debate Society Member; Stanford Wind Ensemble; Stanford Student Enterprises; 2007 Mid-Year Convocation Speaker

My platform:

- Hold ASSU more accountable for providing efficient support and freedom to students and groups
- Better funding for student groups and activities
- Decrease bureaucracy and revise regulations of the OSA
- Expand Cardinal Dollars to more locations on campus
- Provide support for student publications, arts and free speech
- Uphold Stanford traditions including LSJUMB
- Push for International need-blind admissions
- Increase student awareness and participation in the events and opportunities on campus
- Connecting the student body to build a stronger Stanford community
- Listening to your ideas!

Vote for TOM! :)

Please feel free to contact me. I am here for YOU!

www.tomvacek.com

Hello! My name is Anarghya Vardhana, and I am running for Undergraduate Senate. Why should you vote for me? I have fresh ideas and realistic plans. I spent this year as a regular student, and felt that the connection between ASSU and the Student Body is limited to non-existent. Do you know what ASSU does? Do you know what kind of change ASSU can create?

As a Senator, I hope to establish a strong relationship between these two sides of campus, so that students can know who to go to with doubts, questions, or concerns. I also hope to create more intermingling between student groups, and strengthen larger groups, while giving smaller groups more voice and funding so that they may grow. Stanford's diversity should not simply be limited to different races, but should incorporate diversity in ideas, interests, and thoughts.

More activities during Big Game week, and a stronger re-instatement of the Band would increase school spirit, and truly get us rallied up to beat Cal!
Wouldn't it be awesome if Jamba Juice accepted the Cardinal Dollars from our meal plan? I hope to work with administration to offer students more dining hall options.
And a longterm goal and childhood fantasy would be to install water slides in Avery ... we'll see if that happens!

Overall, I am ready to take action, am always willing to listen and speak for you, and would appreciate a vote for Senate. Remember, you can vote for up to 15 people, so please vote Anarghya Vardhana for Senate!

We are Brett Hammon and Lakshmi Karra (aka Brett and Lakshmi) and we are running for ASSU Exec. We would like to be your President and Vice-President because we will make Stanford a great place next year. We have the experience and the ideas, but what truly sets us apart is our leadership skills. All the executive slates are promising a lot of similar things - things that two people cannot possibly accomplish on their own. And we feel our strength will be leading and motivating the ASSU to want to accomplish these goals. We will be visible Executives showing up at all campus events and many student group meetings so that you'll feel comfortable approaching us with an issue.

So check out our platform in detail as well as some fun media at www.brettandlakshmi.com. Voting is next Wednesday and Thursday online at ballot.stanford.edu. All grads and undergrads (including seniors) can vote. You'll be hearing more from us soon!

12:01AM this morning marked the beginning of the week-long annual blitz known as the ASSU Elections. During the wee hours of the morning, candidates and slates were prepping their Birdcage banners, slapping up fliers, and opening up boxes of chalk to begin the traditionally intense week of campaigning.

One Week for the candidates to make themselves known and for you to get to know them. Voting is on Wednesday and Thursday, April 11th and 12th, and the results will be announced on Friday, April 13th at 5:00PM. Here are a couple of resources to help you get started:

List of Candidates and Slates
List of Special Fees Groups
Election Calendar
Campaign Week Special Events!

For complete descriptions of all of the candidates and special fees groups on the ballot, check out the ASSU's Elections Handbook. We'll be bringing you more from the candidates and groups throughout the week. Stay tuned!