The 2025 ASUU elections are open, with 3 tickets running for office. The Chronicle hosted a debate on Feb. 7. Students came out in droves, submitting plenty of audience questions about important issues such as the U Safe Ride app and undocumented students.
The ticket that will serve our student body most is the ABC ticket, comprised of Kefa Abakuki, Cameryn Coffey and Campbell Brown.
An interview with the ABC ticket, in combination with their debate responses, revealed they are the best candidates for the presidency. This ASUU elections cycle, vote ABC.
A Profile of the Candidates
ABC, which represents the first initials of the candidates’ surnames, also stands for “Actions Build Culture.” They fight for collaboration, innovation and communication.
Kefa Abakuki, the candidate for president, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is a political science major at the U and also works as a Student Governance Assistant. He is also the DEI chair of Sigma Chi.
Campbell Brown is running for Vice President of University Relations. He’s studying information systems and finance. He also works as the student coordinator of the Business Tutoring Center at the Eccles School of Business and hails from Boulder, Colorado.
Cameryn Coffey, the candidate for VP of Student Relations, is on the pre-law track, currently studying criminology, sociology and political science. She works as a peer advisor for LEAP Academic Learning Community and as a peer court clerk in Canyons School District, where she does important work preventing the school-to-prison pipeline for K-12 students.
In addition to their academic and leadership credits, all three are well-spoken, forward and determined in their plans to better ASUU and our campus.
Accountability
ASUU has a dim record with plans and promises.
Parker Madsen, the vice president of Student Relations of 2023, spoke about the multicultural center he hoped to build. And yet, this multicultural center is nowhere to be found. The Asian Student Resource Center, which ASUU fought to open in 2022, is also nowhere to be found.
We must wonder if our student politicians promise us things to earn our votes with no intention to deliver upon those promises.
Transparency is a large issue many students have with ASUU.
Brown plans to be transparent about how ASUU uses its funds.
To provide additional clarity on the processes, Coffey plans to host weekly “town hall” meetings where students are invited to come and address ASUU with their issues face-to-face. Town hall meetings allow constituents to communicate with their elected officials directly.
Coffey’s plan would help bridge the gap between U students and ASUU.
Boldness
The ABC ticket has a plan to bring back the DEI-based resource centers U President Taylor Randall elected to dispose of.
“They don’t cut funding for student-led initiatives,” Abakuki said. “ASUU has registered student organizations (RSOs). Those clubs are not limited by new rules.”
In addition to reestablishing beloved resource centers through RSO funding, the ABC ticket plans to utilize RSOs if student mental health resources face major budget cuts this legislative session. The ABC ticket also wants to address the mental health of students on the U Asia campus, providing attention to a key group of students who were undermentioned at the debate.
Sexual assault also continues to plague our campus. The sexual assaults reported in January and February 2025 occurred in on-campus housing and the health campus.
“We want to create in-person courses where students are required to go at least once, where they are sitting down in a classroom and engaging with an educated professional,” Brown said.
It’s great to see strong male voices in our community take a stance on sexual assault. While support is the bare minimum, voices like Brown’s are a critical addition to the conversation on sexual assault prevention.
Requiring training to be in-person and engaging increases the likelihood of their benefits.
Collaboration
We can’t ignore ASUU presidency’s desperate need for more diversity, either. The ABC ticket provides diversity of identity in more ways than one.
However, we should never elect our politicians solely based on their identities, but rather, whether they intend to support all marginalized students, and how they intend to do it.
In response to the question on ABC’s policy on gender identity, and to the trans students affected by H.B. 269, Coffey said, “We love you. We want you here, and we are going to figure out a way to keep you here and keep you safe.”
The ABC ticket is all about creating community. Out of everything said, this is what they kept coming back to.
“[We want to make sure] they know people here on campus who care for them and support them,” Abakuki said.
As students, our voices matter and are so much louder than we think.
We must demand more from our student leaders and those who hope to become them. If we can’t demand transparency from politicians on a student level, we can’t expect to demand it from those on a government level.
It’s time the U student body starts voting in the ASUU elections and attending the debates. We must attend Coffey’s town hall meetings and make our voices heard.
If we want our student leaders to make a difference, it starts with us.
To the ABC ticket: This is not an empty endorsement. You must fulfill your promises and stand by your guarantees to support our student body. Don’t get caught up in the ASUU bubble. Don’t disappoint us. We’re counting on you.
“We built our campaign based off of what we can do, knowing what the limitations are,” Abakuki said. “Everything we’re planning on doing is very feasible and will be done.”
This February, vote ABC for ASUU presidency. The ABC ticket is our best hope for a united, diverse student government that truly cares for the students they serve.
