Co-Presidents
Jonathan Berkowitz and Spencer Glassman
We’re Spencer and Jonathan, AKA Sponathan, and we are thrilled at the prospect of becoming your next HUA presidents! We are outsider candidates and we are running with a platform that sticks to what students actually care about — the FACTs
Financial Aid - more financial resources for students, including ensuring that the Student Activity Fee is included in Financial Aid
Clubs - Creating new clubs shouldn’t be this difficult. We are all students. We deserve the right to use the Harvard name and symbol in our activities.
Transparency - All HUA purchases, allocations, and spending will be made available online.
The vast majority of our budget will be allocated to club funding to create the largest funding pool available to clubs in all of Harvard history!
While these three issues are the core pillars of our campaign, our larger project is bridging the gap between Harvard and their student body, and therefore we are eager to hear from our peers for what issues are important to them! These three positions are most important to us because they represent not what Harvard is, but what Harvard can be — a place of exploration, openness, and equality.
If you want to find out more about us, check out our this google doc (and our SUPER FIRE rap video): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wh8OSaJA0B-zs4Jg-gHJ_mb6PpL8aau1KcNeDeDmhpY/edit?usp=sharing.
We are eager to bring our experience as community leaders and architects of progress to our student government.
John Cooke and Shikoh Hirabayashi
John and Shikoh are running to Make Harvard Home!
We are the only ticket that helped build the HUA as officers. We set up the Social Life Fund and supported events including Glowell, Woodbridge Formal, and the Pan Asian Formal. We organized Concentration Declaration Day and implemented the book subsidies program which distributed $11k towards academic materials.
We will start by upgrading campus life. We will advocate for new shuttle routes, increased evening vans, and a revamp of the Passio Go app. We also pledge to de-pest our spaces of flies and rats! No More Pests!
To improve student mental health, we are committed to capping CAMHS waiting times to ten days and setting up nap pods around campus. We will advocate for religious and athletic accommodations for exams and classes. These include flexible section/exam times and increasing recorded classes.
We will also work to bring back weekly funding so that you can get money when you need it! We will return all unused HUA funding to student organizations and promise absolute clarity and transparency about HUA finances.
We are all about making Harvard more fun! Every week, we will alternate between the Quad and the River to host parties, so that everyone can have a great time!
As FGLI and international students, we understand the challenges of this campus. We will be unapologetically committed to inclusion and strive to make every community feel welcome.
To learn more about what we stand for, check out our platform: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w3c_r4LEuKus1pQ5or44gCmvLPisqz6fzwaMHaeDBe8/edit
Bobby Current and Rohan Shah
Harvard has been through a lot recently, and it’s time for change. We need a student government that works for and is representative of everyone, not just a lucky few. We need a focus on mental health to make our community healthier and stronger. We need change on campus to better the college experience. We need Current and Shah now!
If you elect us, we will bring democratic reform to campus by instituting a legislature to represent everyone. The HUA currently relies on volunteerism to function, which puts long term student needs and priorities at risk. By creating a legislature, we’ll ensure that the government not only works for all of us, but that it works in the first place. This will also ensure a voice for first years, who currently have no elected representation. By doing this, along with having more oversight and transparency in student government, we’ll reinvigorate democracy on campus and put student needs back to the forefront.
Beyond democratic reform, we’ll work with the administration and CAMHS to make mental health services more available for everyone on campus. Harvard needs better mental health services, and we will do whatever possible to provide that. We will also enhance the college experience by doing whatever possible to create a laundry subsidy, by working with HUDS to make positive menu changes, by focusing on DEI, and more.
Join the Current and elect Bobby and Rohan as your Co-Presidents to stop the malarkey and start working for you!
Ethan Kelly and Laila Nasher
With students feeling unwelcome, unseen, and unrepresented by current student leaders, we believe it is essential to put advocacy and inclusion at the forefront of our campaign.
ADVOCACY: If administration likes us, we’re not doing our jobs correctly. We will not join ranks to defend an administrative system that has negatively impacted students.
As Co-Presidents, we will not hide with administration behind closed doors but instead organize “Occupy University Hall” protests to force them to address their inaction around Comaroff, Title IX, and Harvard’s mental health crisis. We’ve already successfully institutionalized funding for Harvard’s first FGLI Welcome Ceremony. We will ensure that ALL affinity group convocations will be funded by Harvard and will create University-wide heritage, Pride, and FGLI Visibility programming.
CLUB FUNDING: Last fall, the HUA failed to allocate $45,000 (17%) of their budget. While the Co-Presidents received $17,000, student groups had to rely on significantly less than 50-75% of what they requested; we commit to reallocating this to student groups. We have edited the financial guidelines line-by-line, increasing funding opportunities across the board.
HIDDEN CURRICULUM: Harvard has a hidden curriculum that bars marginalized students from accessing resources. Laila has gone through the Title IX process – Ethan, the financial aid appeal process. We propose: student advisors and declassified guides to ensure your rights when navigating Harvard.
SOCIAL LIFE: Every other week, we will work with organizations to rent JCRs in the River/Quad, providing food, drinks ;), and music.
Read more at bit.ly/lailaandethan & check out our Instagrams: @lailanasher/@ethanckelly
Zachary Lech and Ivan Specht
We’re Zach and Ivan and we’re running to free Harvard — from bad food & shuttles, hidden fees & requirements, nonexistent academic and mental health resources, and terrible social life.
This school charges $80k per year. It has to be more affordable. We’ll fight for free laundry, printing, and MBTA passes. And we won’t let Harvard kick us out for the summer without an institutionalized summer storage program.
Mental health services can’t be an afterthought, especially when we’re stressed and overworked. We’ll fight for more CAMHS therapists, expanded services, and a bank of mental health days for students to use.
Going to the Quad or the SEC shouldn’t be a strategy game. We’ll push for more frequent shuttles, including night shuttles to the Quad. And we’ll work to institute an airport shuttle around breaks.
Nobody should struggle to access Harvard. We’ll create a centralized funding database, a comprehensive support system for FGLI students, increase the number of advisors, and fight against unnecessary academic requirements — including GenEd’s.
Harvard shouldn’t be a place where fun goes to die. We’ll work with HoCo’s and student organizations on college-wide, block, and house parties that students actually want to go to. We deserve fun events, traditions, and competitions — and a social scene that isn’t dominated by exclusivity.
HUDS should really be “NourishingU.” We’ll push for collaborations with real chefs to bring healthy, fresh, and appealing food options throughout the day, including hot breakfasts, fresh fruit, and entrées that aren’t just chicken — again.
Platform: bit.ly/40PMen5
Instagram: @ivan_zach_hua