As the spring 2022 semester comes to an end, so does the Wojciechowski Presidency.

Noted historically as the University of Utah’s first-ever all-female ASUU administration, the Wojciechowski Presidency promised inclusion, equity and to uplift the voices of marginalized students during their campaign.

Now, roughly a year after being elected, Student Body President Jess Wojciechowski and Vice President of University Relations Tiffany Chan expressed that they worked to keep those commitments and achieve their goals.

All members of the administration were contacted, but only Wojciechowski and Chan were able to attend the interview.

The administration began with five main commitments to students at the U listed on their campaign’s Instagram. Here is how they feel they held up.

Accessibility

The Wojciechowski Presidency’s commitment to better accessibility on campus included, among other things, pushing for all virtual classes and meetings to have closed captions and improving students’ access to mental health resources.

“Within ASUU, we’ve really enforced accessibility, made it a requirement and something that everyone in ASUU is trained on,” Wojciechowski said. “This is big when we’re creating accessible events, marketing and having guidelines for all of that.”

This was reassuring for Wojciechowski — accessibility is something she has “seen grow a lot this year,” compared to the past two years she has been in ASUU.

According to Wojciechowski, right after they were elected, they began to work with the Center for Disability and Access to get closed captions for University Zoom calls. Shortly after this, the administration was informed the U had purchased the version of Zoom that includes closed captions.

This is something Wojciechowski was excited about, “especially since a lot of [the] year was still online for many people.”

Beyond this, the presidency is working to establish a committee focused on accessibility within ASUU.

“We understand that maybe it won’t be a priority to every administration,” Wojciechowski said. “But, if we have it outlined within each branch’s purview to make it a requirement to follow guidelines from the Office of Disability and Access, then ASUU is going to be accessible for the foreseeable future.”

As far as better access to mental health resources, according to Chan, the presidency has worked with the Student Resources Board and various student organizations to help highlight and improve access to mental health resources on campus.

Affordability and Student Parents

The presidency committed to improving affordability on campus, something they were challenged by, according to Wojciechowski.

Their goal included not raising student fees, redistributing excess budget to areas in need of funding and advocating for more affordable parking, among other aspects.

Recently, it was announced that the U’s tuition would be increasing by 5.5%, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. This means students would be paying about $475 more in tuition per year.

“I spoke with a lot of students about this, and overall, decided that it was not something that I was quite in favor of,” Wojciechowski said.

Wojciechowski serves as a trustee on the Board of Trustees who voted on the proposal of the tuition increase. She said she informed the other trustees of her concerns and that she was not comfortable with the increase.

“I requested that we have a clear plan of how we are going to support students’ basic needs on campus before we add an additional cost,” she said. “$300 for some students is rent money, their groceries and gas money. $300 is not a little amount of money, that is a very substantial amount.”

In the vote, Wojciechowski was the only trustee to vote “no” but was able to create a motion requiring the trustees to make a plan to examine how tuition is used to prevent future increases.

Related to this, the presidency spent the majority of the school year working on the ASUU Basic Needs Endowment. This would have used excess funds from budget freezes during the COVID-19 pandemic to support the Basic Needs Collective, a centralized spot for all campus resources, like the Feed U Pantry and childcare.

According to Wojciechowski, the presidency has worked to allocate funding to support childcare on campus. Childcare facilities have been facing staffing issues, something that the presidency has been doing its best to help with.

“In the meantime, it is important that we are getting student parents the resources and funding they need to get childcare, even if it’s off-campus,” Wojciechowski said.

The endowment ultimately failed when seen by the ASUU Assembly.

According to Wojciechowski, the presidency is still working with the Basic Needs Collective to see if there are any loopholes to give them additional funding.

Money not used for the Basic Needs Endowment could be endowed into the ASUU Scholarship Board. This is something they are waiting to get passed.

“Because [the Basic Needs Endowment] unfortunately failed, we have more money that we can put into the scholarship endowment,” Chan said. “We’re working on this legislation to get more scholarships and scholarship awards to students.”

Chan is the chair of the Scholarship Board and is proud of the work she has been doing. Last semester she awarded $10,000 to 10 students and this semester $5,000 to five students. Student parents have priority to the scholarships.

Safety

Among promises of safety were text-based support lines students can use and a commitment to not support in-person events and classes that could be held online.

Chan said while the Wojciechowski administration was not able to implement any text-based support lines, they have supported a more encompassing approach to crises taken on by the U.

“For more general crisis lines, there has been progress and initiatives [made] by the university for more mental health responders,” she said.

The administration’s approach to COVID-19 and in-person events and classes has morphed as the pandemic has gone on.

“Something to keep in mind is that when we were campaigning we were in one of the biggest COVID peaks,” Wojciechowski said. “We definitely are big believers in science. There wasn’t a vaccine at that point, either.”

Now the administration is on board with in-person events and classes, as long as case counts are low, there are vaccine requirements and masks are worn when case counts are high.

“The biggest thing we have dedicated ourselves to do was to listen to scientists and doctors at U Health [to] see what they advised us to do,” Wojciechowski said. “That jumps into our response.”

Solidarity

The Wojciechowski administration made a promise to give marginalized students a voice.

According to Chan, the presidency has had many conversations about this goal with Vice President of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Mary Ann Villarreal, and U President Taylor Randall.

“In response to some of the racial bias incidents, we have had very direct conversations with them, pretty much [telling] them that they are not doing enough, that there needs to be great work done to mend the relationship that they have, especially with students of color,” Wojciechowski said. 

Wojciechowski said the administration has been receptive to this.

Additionally, the presidency met with the U administration directly after campus was made aware of a sexual assault that happened in September 2021.

“We recognize that there is still a very big wound on our campus from the murder of Lauren McCluskey,” Wojciechowski said. “The university, to be frank, has not done enough to build a culture of safety and an environment where, survivors especially, feel safe. We’ve been very upfront with the university administration about that.”

On March 29, the Wojciechowski presidency held a meeting so students could also talk with the U’s administration.

Along with this, Chan has had some community dialogues with the Asian American community on campus. She is drafting a joint resolution in support of Asian American students, working to establish an Asian American Resource Center and an Anti-Asian Hate and Bias Task Force.

After making and working to maintain these commitments, the Wojciechowski administration wants students to be more involved with ASUU.

“ASUU is really capable of doing a lot of good,” Wojciechowski said. “I think that it is really important, especially if you care about things that are happening within our campus community.”

Wojciechowski said that she feels, as a student leader, it is her responsibility to keep students aware of ASUU’s happenings. However, she also feels it is important for students to keep themselves aware.

“It’s important to know what is happening in ASUU, and to hold ASUU leaders accountable at all levels, not just the presidency,” she said. “It’s important to get involved with ASUU if you’re passionate about certain things or want to see things get done.”

Wojciechowski said the U needs passionate students.

“I know there are so many passionate students on campus,” she said. “ASUU really gives you a way to do something and gives you funding and other means of support to do what you’re passionate about and get it passed. ASUU has a lot of potential, but in order for that to be fulfilled in the best way possible, we need students that are passionate about advocacy.”

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