Third-year Commerce student Michael Mitchell, third-year College student Saehee Pérez and third-year Batten student Harper Tran will form a ticket in the upcoming presidential Student Council election, calling themselves the “Dream Ahead” campaign and running on three main pillars — stability, vision and justice.
Within the ticket, Mitchell is running for Student Council president, Pérez is running for Student Council vice president for administration and Tran is running for Student Council vice president for organizations. They currently serve as vice president of organizations, chief of cabinet and director of community engagement, respectively.
Mitchell, Pérez and Tran said that the group decided to run together because they each represent different areas of Student Council, and their shared mutual respect for one another allows each person’s voice to be heard during their campaign.
“We all represent such a diversity of experiences,” Pérez said. “We touch a lot of different communities on Grounds, and they all are really interwoven in a great way … we also get along very well.”
The “Dream Ahead” campaign aims to enact policies that prioritize stability, vision and justice. Each candidate noted their initiatives and policy plans that fall under these pillars. These include raising the Student Activities Fee — an annual fee paid by University students which is put towards funding for Contracted Independent Organizations — increasing support for CIOs by providing centralized platforms for CIO resources as well as expanding Counseling and Psychological Services mental health resources for students.
Stability
The group plans on prioritizing stability within Student Council through long-term financial initiatives, increasing transparency and revamping resources for CIOs.
First, Mitchell said that financial stability specifically is a key priority, and explained that Student Council is currently being supported by a gift from former University President Jim Ryan. That monetary gift was extended until 2031 by University President Scott Beardsley — however, Mitchell expressed his concern about Student Council’s ability to support itself once these finite funds are depleted.
“I don’t think we’re able to support ourselves in the long-term, from a financial standpoint, and that also goes for student organizations. There’s a clear hindrance on [student organizations’] ability to operate, and I think that directly damages the student experience at U.Va.,” Mitchell said.
In order to establish this financial stability, Mitchell said he plans on creating an endowment for Student Council. He said that this centralization of assets would allow the Student Council to establish long term financial support, and also help diminish a nearly $2.5 million gap between what student organizations request from Student Council and what the organization actually has to allocate.
“This is the perfect time to start an endowment. It will help secure the longevity of [Support and Access Services] … there’s a huge funding gap,” Mitchell said. “With student organizations, about $3.5 million that they request is eligible for student activities fee funding ... We only have $850,000 to allocate, so there's a $2.5 million gap there that directly impacts the student experience.”
Mitchell also said he wants to spearhead a large-scale capital campaign aimed at expanding fundraising through increased efforts to drive up donations. He said he has already reached out to the University of Virginia Investment Management Company to discuss how to lead development efforts with individuals in the School of Commerce.
Pérez, running for VPA, said she is concerned with the lack of action by previous Student Council administrations to adhere to the University-wide changes in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies. She said that despite a conversation with lawyers that took place last October, the Student Council website continues to promote separate funding and support for marginalized communities or organizations on Grounds, which they were explicitly told was no longer allowed.
“There are concerns in terms of stability with the way that we are responding to a lot of political changes,” Pérez said. “Some of the things we have on the websites, particularly for the descriptions, with things like diversity engagement … legally cannot be on the website [and] that really threatens our stability.”
Pérez also said she plans on reshaping the expectations for the chief financial officer role within Student Council to ensure clearer communication in an effort to increase financial transparency within the organization.
Running for VPO — the role within Student Council that focuses on overseeing student organizations — Tran said she plans on creating a new centralized Canvas page for CIO leaders to consolidate resources. She said this resource would make the way in which Student Council allocates funding to CIOs more public and accessible, and would foster connections between student organizations. Tran said that the current resources made available for CIOs are being underutilized because of outdated websites, leaving CIO leaders with limited information and support.
“Clubs have challenges navigating the resources that are provided,” Tran said. “Some of these [resources] haven’t been updated since 2021.”
Vision
Vision is “Dream Ahead’s” second pillar, and the ticket hopes to use their experience on Student Council to reexamine the ways the organization is run internally. These initiatives include addressing concerns for low-income students, providing easier access to resources for CIOs and increasing diversity within CAPS providers.
“I think we’re the ticket that has the experience necessary to create a solid vision of what we want Student Council to look like, whether it be what we want the landscape of clubs to look like, our financial backing or policies in terms of how Student Council [is internally] run,” Pérez said.
Mitchell said he plans on advocating to raise the Student Activities Fee from $58 to $62, which would result in an additional $110,000 in funding per year. He said that this fee, which all students pay along with their tuition, has not been adjusted for inflation in recent years and that raising it is imperative for Student Council to be able to allocate adequate funding for student organizations.
“There is a period of 12 years, from … 2010 and 2022, where we didn’t touch the fee or raise it. We actually decreased it at one point … The argument speaks for itself, clubs utilize almost all of the funding they get [and] they need more … and the easiest, most immediate way to do that is by raising the Student Activities Fee,” Mitchell said.
Further, Mitchell explained his plans to create a Fraternity and Sorority Life representative seat on Student Council. Mitchell noted the recent addition of a student-athlete representative seat in 2025, who Mitchell said has provided good insight into needed legislation to improve the life of student-athletes. Acknowledging that 25 percent of University students are in Greek life, Mitchell said that there should be a representative to give that pool of students a voice.
Mitchell also expressed his hope to enact policies that reform CAPS services to make them more efficient and diversify staff.
“I don’t think there are enough therapists of color [or enough] male therapists … [CAPS] needs to be more prioritized by U.Va., and we need increased access to therapy for students,” Mitchell said. “They need student feedback … if you have a Student Council administration focused on that and voicing concerns, they would be willing to make changes.”
As VPA, Pérez said she wants to prioritize implementing a technology grant for students on Pell Grants or with limited income. She explained that this technology grant would relieve immense stress for low-income students, allowing them to receive funding for technology issues that would otherwise be a hindrance to their academic success.
“Being in a position where one thing goes wrong with your laptop and you don’t know if you can do schoolwork, [when] you’re here to do schoolwork and to be a student, [is] a very stressful situation. Doing as much as possible to make sure that we ease the burden on students, not only financially, but also mentally … is a very big vision of ours,” Pérez said.
Tran said her goals under the ticket’s “vision” pillar include revising the CIO consultants branch of Student Council — which oversees CIO operations — in order to better assist new CIOs, as well as creating an interactive virtual map for the semesterly Student Activities fair.
“What we’re interested in doing is refocusing that mission around onboarding, around resource creation and around CIO connectivity,” Tran said. “What we want to do is have CIO consultants play kind of a hand holding role, [to] help these new organizations feel comfortable, meet others and learn about all the resources and events taking place."
Justice
The “Dream Ahead” campaign is also focused on enhancing accessibility for students through hearing and implementing student feedback on issues such as housing options, CIO funding and relationships with local police.
“This [justice pillar] really encapsulates our entire mission in terms of promoting accessibility, [and] ensuring that students’ voices are heard across the board. Last year… people didn’t feel represented by their leadership, and what we want to do is prevent that instability,” Tran said.
Under this pillar, Mitchell said he plans on prioritizing rebuilding student relationships with local police to ensure trust and transparency. Mitchell said due to incidents like the false shooting report in November, many students feel as though the local police have failed to provide them with accurate and timely emergency updates, leading to widespread student concern.
“There is no clear stream of communication between [students and the local police], and I think that causes a lot of confusion,” Mitchell said. “When you have these incidents that shouldn’t happen at college, but they do happen and the alerts are delayed … you have to refer to Yik Yak … that is such a big issue.”
Mitchell also said he wants to create initiatives to increase student input on academic advising processes within the schools of the University, as he said he believes that advisors are not as helpful as they could be in guiding students through their academic paths.
Mitchell also proposed his idea to raise student housing concerns over pricing to local officials. According to Mitchell, local officials have been responsive to callings from Student Council in the past and that this extended communication could help address the growing need for affordable off-Grounds housing amongst students.
“The housing process at U.Va is intimidating, it’s confusing and it’s not accessible,” Mitchell said. “Within Student Council, we need to establish a subcommittee … and I think that would be really great to have students working on that, coming up with policies … that I can relay to City Hall.”
Pérez’s plans focus on policies that increase diversity amongst Student Council members and create a disability advocacy agency, also within Student Council.
“One thing [this Justice pillar looks like for me] is making sure that our different agencies and cabinets are well-representative of the groups that exist at U.Va.,” Pérez said. “[We need to] make sure that our priorities reflect student needs, especially when it comes to advocating and then furthering our collaboration and our bargaining skills when it comes to administrators.”
Tran said she wants to prioritize transparent CIO funding data and enforce regular meetings with the Finance Committee and Chief Financial Officer to address their monetary utilization rates — the amount of money actually spent from a committee, agency or CIO’s budget by the end of the fiscal year — within the Student Council. She noted her desire to house this data directly on the Student Council website.
“Theres no reason why [CIO data] shouldn’t be on the Student Council website,” Tran said. “[There should be] explanations of what [the data means and] why it’s important [to target] student concerns.”
Message to Students
The “Dream Ahead” candidates come from a variety of experience and aim to diversify representation within Student Council and prioritize policies that amplify student voices to University and local officials to implement policy change.
“After a period of instability last year and into the current year, the student body and other stakeholders need a student government they can trust, that represents them and listens to their voice, and that’s what we’re here to deliver,” Tran said.
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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