This ASUU election cycle, three tickets are vying for the 2024-25 student body presidency.
The Boyden ticket comprises students Joe Boyden, Paige Moon and Ty Nishikawa.
Boyden is running for student body president, Moon is running for vice president of university relations and Nishikawa is running for vice president of student relations.
Moon is a junior, and she is studying finance with an emphasis in advanced financial analysis. She was interested in running for office after meeting Boyden and felt the timing was right.
“We just felt like this would be an opportunity to make the change that we wanted as students of the University of Utah,” she said.
Nishikawa is also a junior and is majoring in marketing with a minor in communications.
Boyden is a sophomore at the U and is an undeclared major in the business school. He currently serves as the Associate Director for Campus Events Board in ASUU.
“Be Bold with Boyden” is the ticket’s slogan.
“We believe that the initiatives and things we want to push and our bold takes are going to take effort … to change the student experience at the University of Utah,” Boyden said.
One of the initiatives the ticket plans to work on includes changing the “social scene” at the University of Utah. Boyden said in his own experience, there are “pockets of events” to meet other students, but no dedicated space for that purpose.
“There’s a very untapped potential here on campus,” he said.
Another initiative the ticket mentioned was creating a dedicated website or platform to have all the local discounts that U students can get in the Salt Lake Area.
“So if there’s an organized platform that all of these discounts are put on, it creates more business for the local businesses here in Salt Lake City, more vibrant community and also makes life more affordable for university students,” Boyden said.
The ticket has three pillars they will focus on if elected.
Moon said those pillars are culture, connection and safety, which include building campus and Salt Lake culture and creating connections with other students.
For the safety pillar, Moon said she wants to make sure all students feel safe on campus, by having more lighting in parking lots for students walking at night. She also discussed promoting the free STI clinics available on campus, which many students are unaware of.
“We want all of our students to get the college experience that they paid for, especially with college being super expensive these days,” Nishikawa said. “I think that if we were able to have more events, we can get the whole Utah community to come to we could create a tradition and better culture.”
Nishikawa said he has seen a lot of different groups on campus and thinks more can be done to bring everyone together.
Moon finished by saying, “We’re wanting to be very bold and make things happen.”
ASUU voting opens Feb. 26 at 7 a.m. MST and runs through Feb. 29 at 12 p.m. The first ASUU presidential debate will be held on Feb. 6 from 6-8 p.m.
ASUU Elections results will be announced on March 1, 2024.
