In the first contested race since 2017, incumbent president Azwad B. Arif was reelected president of Associated Student Government on April 3 with running mate Josh Manahan as his vice president. The pair plan to improve the University by asking for more student feedback and creating larger events to encourage students to take an active part in the campus community. 

One major focus of Arif’s campaign was student involvement in campus decisions, and he hopes to make good on his promise to solicit more student feedback. The administration plans to distribute QR codes throughout often-populated areas of campus and on Hornet TV with surveys requesting student thoughts and ideas on how campus should be run. Arif also plans to hold town hall meetings in which students are encouraged to voice their concerns and ideas for campus. 

Arif believes that gathering student feedback will better inform the use of campus resources to the benefit of students. 

“A lot of students don’t know about records that are actually public, right?” said Arif. “I think things we want more transparency with is really going out there and asking students where those monies go. … That way we’re not just trying our best on what a couple people want, and then we have those other half people that didn’t want that, but we didn’t ever hear that.”

The administration also plans to reorganize the student event schedule to maximize connectivity on campus. 

According to Manahan, the University has hosted 156 events in the past year. ASG plans to invest the event planning budget in a much smaller number of events to create larger events that attract a larger crowd. The organization is considering folk pop musician Alex Warren for a concert that would be free to students. As Manahan puts it, the new administration intends to “consolidate the amount of events and expand the experience students get.”

“We can pool some of our resources together and say, ‘You know what, we want to do one thing,’” said Arif. “And instead of having to do 10 different flyers for all these different 10 events, we want to do more, bigger and broader that students say, ‘Okay, this is something that’s happening.’ … You know, it leaves a dent in their memory, in their journey. I think they’ll connect much better with the student involvement on campus again.”

Arif and Manahan also want to make it easier to get involved on campus by revamping the Hornet Central website. This website hosts information about and applications for registered student organizations, but Manahan thinks the page is “kind of a mess right now.” He suggested the inclusion of a search bar for key words and the use of search engine optimization to make it easier for students to search their interests. 

“Maybe you search up, ‘I want to do something that is involved with powerlifting,’” said Manahan. “In that case, then the Corky’s Barbell Club would pop up, something that you can join right there. And then all of these have the recruiters’ contact information as well as their Snapchat so you can just quickly Snapchat them and say, ‘Hey, how do I get involved here?’”

Arif and Manahan also addressed campus issues of student record termination and potential changes to the DEI landscape. They acknowledged that they have little control over the situation, but they both intend to stay up to date with changes to campus. Arif also advised students to speak to professional staff in addition to ASG members. 

“We’re here for students,” said Manahan. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re an international student or a transfer student or a domestic student, all I see is you’re a student, and you have all the rights that the student at Emporia State here does, and we want to protect them.”

Arif emphasizes that ASG “isn’t really about politics,” but about discourse. 

“When you have two people talking to one another, they can tell each other, ‘This is why I don’t like what you’re doing,’” said Arif. “And I think when we get into that habit, it might be uncomfortable, but once you get through it, I think you know that person much more than just brushing off somebody like, ‘Yeah, I definitely hear what you’re saying’ and not really engaging with something. I think disagreeing is fine, and I think that’s the value we want to bring out to the community.”

Arif and Manahan will take office in the fall of 2025.