Presented by The Daily Pennsylvanian
The Undergraduate Assembly is the elected, representative branch of student government at Penn, charged with improving life for all students through funding, services, and advocacy. The highest authority is the President of the student body, followed by the Vice President. The UA Vice President oversees UA Steering, a group of influential student groups on campus that meet to discuss issues pertaining to student life.
The purpose of the four Class Boards is to provide social programming that instills a sense of class and school spirit, unity and pride, and breaks through social barriers. Each class popularly elects a president, executive vice president, vice president for internal affairs, vice president for external affairs, vice president for finance, and class chairs.
1) Uncompromising Activism: For mis- and underrepresented minorities, sexual assault victims, FGLI, LGBTQ+ students. No longer making demands palatable! We won’t hesitate to bring up difficult topics and push for change.
2) Effective Representation: We will always prioritize student voices, rather than push our own agenda. We will actively solicit feedback in order to champion the causes that you care about.
3) Improved Campus Climate: Redefine what wellness means in our current moment. We’ll work to ensure that Penn embraces everyone regardless of race, citizenship, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
4) Increased Collaboration: We plan to work closely with student groups, continually uplifting their efforts to administration. As true liaisons, we will never co-opt existing movements or attempt to take credit.
5) Total Accountability: Holding Penn accountable to students, the West Philadelphia community, and the environment. We’ll hold students accountable to each other and hold the UA accountable to the student body.
1) Uncompromising Activism: For mis- and underrepresented minorities, sexual assault victims, FGLI, LGBTQ+ students. No longer making demands palatable! We won’t hesitate to bring up difficult topics and push for change.
2) Effective Representation: We will always prioritize student voices, rather than push our own agenda. We will actively solicit feedback in order to champion the causes that you care about.
3) Improved Campus Climate: Redefine what wellness means in our current moment. We’ll work to ensure that Penn embraces everyone regardless of race, citizenship, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
4) Increased Collaboration: We plan to work closely with student groups, continually uplifting their efforts to administration. As true liaisons, we will never co-opt existing movements or attempt to take credit.
5) Total Accountability: Holding Penn accountable to students, the West Philadelphia community, and the environment. We’ll hold students accountable to each other and hold the UA accountable to the student body.
1) Check out my website tinyurl.com/Vote4Gabriela for a full description of my platform
1) Maintain community this semester in a virtual environment with events like Zoom raves, game nights, and speed-dating. Collaborate with other Class Boards to connect different years together.
2) Come back strong from COVID-19 with back-to-back events and Penn traditions on-campus.
3) Provide a shipping option to deliver Penn merch sold by Class Board to directly your house (financial aid included for eligible students)
4) Promote inclusion, and increase funding/partnerships with cultural organizations like the Makuu Black Cultural Center, the LGBT Center, La Casa Latina, the Penn's Women Center, and the Assembly of International Students.
5) Continue supporting FGLI students in Penn traditions and represent FGLI interests in the UA
6) Promote better communication and outreach practices in UA representation
1) Ensuring a strong community connection between the UA and the rest of Penn
2) Pressuring Penn’s administration into making reoccurring contributions to underrepresented communities at Penn
3) Maintaining academic equity for those who may be in different learning environments this year.
4) Creating spaces for students and administration to discuss and follow through with sustainability measures.
5) Advocating for FGLI, URM, and LGBTQIA+ members of the Penn community across the board
1) 1. Establish a fair conversion rate from meal swipes to dining dollars that is more flexible and reasonable than the current punitive structure.
2) 2. Reduce the amount of clubs that require both an application and interview process for acceptance.
3) 3. Revamp and renovate Houston Hall to be a more social space on campus for the spring.
4) 3. Create more mindfulness spaces on campus for when student return.
5) 5. Expand the amount of dining plan options available to students.
6) Finally, remember Isabella HASSETT HAS what IT takes.
1) I personally barely knew about all of the important work UA does until very recently. If elected I vow to improve UA accessibility for student concerns — through anonymous drop boxes, office hours, and/or a social media page for students to send concerns and things they want UA to bring up to administration!
2) I will explore the possibility of increasing space for Penn cultural centers. Why are three of our biggest cultural centers in the basement of the Arch building? And to that point— why is the Intercultural Center so far away from campus?
3) Encourage all professors to post recordings of lectures even after this semester if a student submits a Course Absence Report. Students all get sick from time to time, and it is a public health issue if students are afraid of missing lectures when sick because professors won’t post lectures online.
4) International students already have to deal with differing time zones. Inflexible professors only exacerbate the problem. Accommodations must be provided for international students during inaccessible synchronous online lectures!
5) Accessible premed advising! As a first-generation pre-med with no support from family or friends, I had a difficult time at first trying to decide what classes were most important in my pre-med journey. Penn should actively help those planning to go pre-med through more active advising.
6) Our dining halls throw out so much food at the end of meals, yet there are populations experiencing food insecurity within Philadelphia. With UA, I will explore the possibility of donating Bon Appetit’s food waste to the impoverished communities that surround Penn.
1) Tuition -- Penn kept our tuition the same as last year; I will press them to justify this decision and will ensure that we are getting all that we’re paying for.
2) Covid-19 -- On-Campus Testing must be available to all students who want it, year round, symptoms or otherwise; information is power. And, I will install disposable mask dispensaries along Locust.
3) Covid-19 -- For our fellow students living outside of Philadelphia this semester, especially in places where testing is difficult to acquire, Penn can and must send out mail-away, self-administered testing.
4) CAPS -- We may be Penn-Strong but we’re all struggling to adapt to this more isolating new normal. We need increased availability and marketing of drop-in, on-demand, privacy-sensitive mental health consultations.
5) Pass/Fail Deadline -- Our lives as Penn Students and citizens have never been more unpredictable; I will lobby to have the Pass/Fail deadline extended past October 30.
6) Mobile PennCard Access -- I will continue my work collaborating with Next Generation Student Systems to develop technology to make accessing buildings, rooms, meal swipes, and dining dollars easier than ever once we’re back.
1) Continued work with SRFS to spearhead the Financial Wellness initiative to increase financial literacy and resources for Penn undergraduates.
2) Sustained efforts to increase academic transparency, pushing for a full syllabus database across all undergraduate schools as a guide and resource.
3) Pushing for more resources for mis- and underrepresented minorities on campus in the form of budget reallocations and new resource centers.
4) Reconfigure relationships with organizations like CURF and Penn Abroad to increase equitable and widespread access to opportunities across the student body.
5) Increased accountability on behalf of the UA as a governing body to Penn students through the form of “office hours” or newsletter blasts.
6) Improved transparency between Penn administration and the study body to establish a renewed compact of trust and legitimacy.
1) Fostering community through innovative virtual events throughout the year.
2) Committing to making Class Board and UA place a larger focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts not only at Penn, but beyond.
3) Developing means to transition the student experience into a virtual experience to allow us to safely maximize our college experience amid the pandemic.
1) CAS specific online tutoring services
2) Online Pre-Med/Pre-Law opportunities
3) Facilitating local Internships and jobs for students staying home
4) Remote Work/Volunteer/Research Opportunities
1) Continue working to create new ways to facilitate friendship-making for new students via groups and events.
2) Ensuring that students have access to drinkable water on campus, including the Pottruck Fitness Center.
3) Continue to work on initiatives that allow students to easily identify volunteer opportunities in the surrounding Philadelphia community.
4) Continue to work on initiatives that foster school spirit, like subsidizing Football and Basketball games to increase audience turnout.
5) Continue to work on initiatives that improve the Penn Dining experience, including holding Penn accountable for the food quality and health standards.
6) Continue to work on initiatives that reduce the cost of Penn Dining as a whole, and especially for financially-aided students.
1) COVID Testing: Penn should extent Student COVID-19 Testing throughout the entire year in order to ensure the safety of our students.
2) Funding the Black Community at Penn. I want to call on the University administration to annually allocate more substantial funds to support the Black community!
3) Accommodating for FGLI/International Students. I want to help create more fair opportunities for these students through increasing refund checks or making professors more accommodating with synchronous class times/assignments.
1) Quarter Zips & Harry Potter T-Shirts - Even though its up in the air if we'll ever get back to campus, I will make sure our class can purchase both items
2) Merch Drops - As we will be saving our funds for the first semester, I plan on having a massive merch drop when we return to campus! Hats, Mugs, Scarves, etc
3) Improving Residential & Dining Life - I continually want to make sure that students are happy with dining & housing by advocating through each respective advisory boards.
4) SAC Recruitment - Improve the recruitment process for freshmen and transfers who are already stressed about acclimating and meeting new friends.
5) Traffic light - Fix the traffic light at 38th & Spruce. It is so dangerous! DPS should put more pressure on the city to fix it.
1) Create UA Global Student Engagement, a board dedicated to encouraging and ensuring Penn student opportunities globally. Opportunities would include class travel, research travel, non-US conferences, and peer-lead, international study groups for all core classes.
2) Provide resources for the Wharton community for international job placements and/or access to conferences.
3) Encourage several cross-over events between Penn’s diverse groups, and easier ability for Wharton students to create them
4) Instill regular town halls between Wharton students and representatives to discuss concerns or desires
1) I hope to work with the administration to address food accessibility on Penn's campus.
2) Work with the administration to improve transparency, especially in regards to campus re-integration for Spring 2021.
3) Extend the Add/drop period for students to allow for more optionality in Penn's curriculum.
1) Organization Communication: I plan to advocate for more intensive methods in which many clubs at Penn, especially those with overlapping interests, could experience less conflict with one another.
2) Encourage Initiative: Stronger communication between Penn students and faculty is so important, and I hope to serve as a resource to connect students with innovative ideas to the appropriate faculty.
3) Supporting Minorities & POC: As a POC, I have found a great community at Penn, and I hope to push for greater inclusion within the UA to amplify minority voices.
1) Addressing student concerns about online learning
2) Advocating for more cultural spaces on campus for minority communities
3) Combating assault within student groups, laying the groundwork for stronger policies that prevent misconduct when Penn’s social scene returns to normal
1) Continue to advocate for a team of Wellness TA’s for Intro STEM courses. These TAs will aim to create a welcoming environment in an academic setting.
2) Lobby for a more diverse representation of students on various students groups on campus.
3) Liaise to make structural changes to Career Services to have advisors specializing in specific industries. Having more diverse recruiters at Engineering Career Fairs.
4) In order to build community in a post pandemic world, unite students from different majors and years under a cohort system which will be a longer and more sustained version of the New Student OPA cohorts.
5) Continue to explore the idea of reflection spaces in a post-covid era.
6) While focusing on fairness is important, academic policies also need to focus on student wellbeing. Working with faculty to find ways to be more understanding of students impacted by the pandemic.
1) “Compensatory Training for Nursing Students”: figure out a potential arrangement that would allow nursing students to receive important in-person clinic training modules after it is safe.
2) “PPE @ Penn”: an initiative that provides at least one PPE package, including face masks and hand sanitizers, for every student.
3) “Extracurricular Engagement”: alleviating that stress of club recruitment by promoting inclusion and engagement across Penn extracurricular activities.