Third-year College student Micah Andrews, third-year Engineering student Ben Lawrence and third-year College student Emily Frost will form a presidential ticket in the next Student Council presidential election. With a campaign named “Our U.Va.,” the group is running on the pillars of expanding access and protecting independence.
Within the group, Andrews is running for President, Lawrence is running for Vice President for Organizations and Frost is running for Vice President for Administration. Currently, all three candidates hold positions within the Council. Andrews is the Chief of Support and Access Services, Lawrence is the director of Airbus — a low-cost program to transport students to and from the University to the Richmond, Dulles and Charlottesville airports around school breaks — within the Support and Access Services branch and Frost is the Director of University Relations.
Through their time in the Council, Frost and Andrews worked together to increase student voices in the administrative processes of the University. The two assisted in drafting outgoing correspondence from the Council to the University community throughout the contested presidential appointment process, which culminated with the appointment of University President Scott Beardsley Dec. 19. The pair also worked with Kenyon Bonner, University Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer, to increase student voice in the presidential search given the lack of student representation on the search committee.
“Emily and I were involved in a lot of the work that Student Council did this year to try and lobby U.Va. to increase student voice in the [University administrative] process, particularly for the presidential appointment,” Andrews said.
Andrews and Lawrence worked to grow the new Support and Access Services division of the Council created in 2021. SAS was founded to provide resources for students at low- or no-cost, through programs such as Airbus and U.Va. Mutual Aid. According to Andrews, Lawrence, as the director of Airbus, stood out as a competent director and helped increase funding for the new division.
“Ben stuck out as an incredibly well-done director,” Andrews said. “He’s very good at data collection, and I think that that’s something that you need to be incredibly good at in order to be in the VPO position, because that is about making sure that you show up for clubs and you advocate for them.”
The candidates explained that they built their policy plans around the key pillars of expanding access and protecting the University’s independence. Andrews said the ticket’s emphasis on independence was in response to what she saw as the federal government reaching too far into University governance and pressuring former University President Jim Ryan to resign.
Expanding Access
According to Andrews, the “Our U.Va.” ticket aims to expand accessible services for students to ensure that the University is serving the needs of the greater population of students. She said she is committed to ensuring that housing and parking remain accessible to the broader student population.
Andrews plans to lobby the University for the housing initiatives outlined in Ryan’s 2030 Plan plan, which aspired to have all second-year students to live on Grounds by 2030. Andrews explained that in accordance with the 2030 Plan, University Housing & Residence Life made the decision to prioritize first- and second-years during on-Grounds housing selection, and in turn, upperclassmen living on Grounds have become responsible for finding a place to reside off Grounds. She further noted that displacing upperclassmen from their on-Grounds housing left them scrambling due to a lack of housing off Grounds.
“One of our big tenets is to lobby U.Va. to change the way in which they do housing and to look towards ways to build or collaborate with Charlottesville to create more [on-Grounds] housing,” Andrews said.
Similarly, Andrews said she wants to revisit the amount of parking available on Grounds by working with the University Transit Service and University Parking and Transportation to ensure more parking is made accessible.
Furthermore, Andrews plans to facilitate student access to mental health services at the University. Citing long wait times to schedule appointments with the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services, she believes that she and her running mates can work to ensure students have access to mental health resources in a timely manner.
“A three-week wait time is what it currently is to get scheduled for an in person appointment,” Andrews said. “I want to work with Student Health [alumni] … to either hire more counselors or to help with connecting students with outside counseling resources … We really need to work on expanding the [mental health resources] for students.”
To increase general student participation and voice in the Council, Andrews also hopes to better broadcast and utilize the Hoos Concerned service. This public forum allows University students to share concerns, and Council members post updates regarding the progress the University is making on fixing those issues.
Lawrence plans to increase the visibility of Contracted Independent Organizations to promote their events. He intends to do this by creating a mass calendar for every CIO event — he noted this would increase students’ awareness about ongoing events.
“I think we can reach a lot more students and a lot more places in order to get out and support their peers,” Lawrence said. “And that spans from any cultural organization having some sort of cultural night to an a cappella group having a concert.”
If elected VPO, Lawrence also plans to make the University community feel more accessible to out-of-state and transfer students. He is an out-of-state student himself, and he said students unfamiliar with the University’s culture can experience a lack of resources and connections to help them get involved in organizations.
Lawrence noted that a long-term goal within the Organizations Branch of the Council is to encourage clubs to rethink their interview processes, recognizing that many transfer and out-of-state students enter college on an uneven playing field.
“Adding resources to help transfer students get involved in organizations, maybe even having a transfer student-specific club fair that’s run by other transfer students, [can help the students succeed] in these clubs around Grounds,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence further plans to make CIOs more accessible to transfer and out-of-state students by amplifying resources such as the Cavalier Career Closet, the Career Center and the Writing Center so students know where they can polish their resume or find business clothes for interviews.
Frost has two main priorities for her policy plans — the first of which is securing an endowment for the Council. After receiving allocated discretionary funds from former University President Jim Ryan and current University President Scott Beardsley, the Council has enough funding to keep SAS financially stable until 2031. However, Frost plans to ensure that the services that the Council provides will be available to students much longer than 2031.
“I really want to ensure that we can have these resources for students for generations to come at U.Va.,” Frost said. “One way I see us doing that is by creating an endowment engaging alumni, so they contribute back to this organization that gave them … so much.”
Frost’s second priority is making the Council general body meetings more accessible to the broader University community. She intends to do this by creating a Student Council YouTube channel where the council can live stream and archive meetings.
“Not everyone can make it to the Newcomb South Meeting room at 6:30 [p.m.] on Tuesday,” Frost said. “Some people have clubs. They’re enriching the University in other ways … So I want to make sure that everyone in our community can engage with the students who are supposed to represent them.”
Through emphasizing University resources such as housing, mental health services, student organizations and Council resources like Support and Access Services, the “Our U.Va.” candidates aim to increase student accessibility in various aspects of the University.
Protecting Independence
The “Our U.Va.” ticket’s second pillar focuses on ensuring that student voices are heard throughout University-wide administrative processes. The ticket candidates said they plan to do this by lobbying for voting power for the student member of the Board of Visitors. Andrews said she believes this will help depoliticize the Board by ensuring that the Board is more accountable to student concerns and voices.
Currently, the student member of the Board serves as a non-voting representative. While they participate in discussions and provide student perspectives, they do not have a formal vote on policy matters. The “Our U.Va.” candidates’ goal of giving the student representative voting power would allow them to vote on official policy.
“We want people to know that our ticket will remain steadfast in making sure that student voice remains in the forefront, and that [the government] is not plaguing our University any longer,” Andrews said.
The candidates also intend to focus on the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and strengthen connections to the University’s Main Campus. Andrews explained that Wise students do not have a representative on the Board, although they have a committee of students dedicated to communicating with it.
“[We] would be strengthening ties with U.Va. Wise to make sure that any decision that is made at the U.Va. level also benefits U.Va. Wise in the long term,” Andrews said. “They are our brothers and sisters down in Southern Virginia.”
Message to Students
Broadly, the “Our U.Va.” candidates said they aim to listen to student voices and follow through with providing resources to the students who need them to ensure that everyone has the ability to succeed at the University.
“I think that our general message would be that we’re here for students,” Andrews said. “We’re going to create new resources, we’re going to change Student Council and we’re going to do it all for the greater good.”
All University students are eligible to vote in the Student Council Election for President, VPO and VPA, with voting set to take place from Feb. 24 to 26. The ballot will be sent to students via email, and other positions on the ballot will include University Judiciary Committee and Honor Council Representatives.
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