Austin Walker: Candidate for President

To represent the students of the UCSF campus and have their voices be heard. That is both the fundamental mission of and my number one goal for ASUC.

My name is Austin Walker, and I am a first-year medical student running for ASUC president.

My drive to run stems from the core desire to enhance the educational and life experiences each student takes away from his/her time at UCSF.

Further, I firmly believe that as students of the best health care institution in the nation, we have the exciting opportunity to be the change we would like to see in education and health care reform. I would like to represent the change that you  would like to see.

I have already taken steps to represent the student voice on campus by serving as a student representative of the UCSF Transportation Advisory Committee, and separately as a representative for the first-year medical class.

In order to best embody the student voice, I would like to continue to build upon the interprofessional collaboration between the schools of pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, nursing and physical therapy that was established last year.

Whereas currently, ASUC only represents the schools of dentistry, medicine, and pharmacy, a constitution was drafted for a new student government to incorporate all UCSF students.

I would like to promote this drafted constitution in order to allow the students of UCSF to have a more united and powerful voice both on and off campus. This development would allow the organization to have more influence over decisions related to overall development of UCSF campus, to housing concerns, to transportation issues, and more.

Further, a current area I would like to improve is the number and diversity of interactions between students of the different schools. To better integrate the various schools, I will build upon old traditions such as the inter-school prom, Trivia Night, and BBQ by developing new traditions for the schools to unite around.  I believe that these gatherings are a great way to foster campus cohesiveness and overall pride in UCSF.

Beyond that and carrying out the expected duties of ASUC president, I would work with the ASUC team to appropriately survey the students of each school. This would allow us to best understand the student voice on current topics, and gauge what projects the individual student wants his/her representatives to work on.

This way, we can work together to improve the education and experiences that you take away from your time at UCSF.