ASWSU President Isaac Velazquez and Vice President Grace Carpenter have spent the summer getting ready for the upcoming school year.
“A lot of it was just kind of having the typical, like liaison tasks that a lot of the departments have,” said Velazquez. “Like, community committees, meeting with like a lot of interest groups within and outside the university. That was a lot of what we did, just like setting them up, touching base, and being like, these are our plans.”
“Trying to set that stage and build that bridge for our new team to come in and take over,” Carpenter added.
Velazquez said he plans on meeting with WSU President Elizabeth Cantwell Thursday, while Carpenter said she has been emailing with her throughout the summer.
“Honestly, President Cantwell has been very receptive to connecting with students, which has been fantastic,” Velazquez said. “That is something that we didn’t get at all with Kirk Schulz. That was just not happening. It’s really nice to have someone who is in Pullman.”
In terms of priorities, those have not changed for the most part; they still want to focus on safety, community outreach and improving basic needs, which they set during their campaign in the spring.
Carpenter said she wants to get new students familiar with ASWSU.
“Our message [to freshmen] is mainly to get them well-versed in ASWSU,” she said. “You would want them to actually know what it is coming in. I really didn’t have any clue what ASWSU was and a lot of students are like ‘what does ASWSU even stand for?’”
They also want to host Downtown Day, an event that would bring students to downtown Pullman.
“[It] was a big thing that people wanted to do last year and it never happened,” Velazquez said. “We’re really trying to make sure that happens. Downtown Day really looks like an opportunity for Pullman or WSU students to come down to the community.”
Carpenter said he and Velazquez are working to improve campus safety by working to keep the blue light safety kiosks littered around campus, which she said were at risk of being removed over the summer.
She also talked about hosting an event called Police in the Park, where students could meet police officers. The event would happen later this fall.
