ASSU executive candidates Arzyn and Bhatia want ‘less yapping, more doing’

The Daily conducted a series of interviews the week before the election with three electoral slates running to serve as ASSU executive officers. The Daily elected not to publish its interview with Ivy Chen ’26 M.A. ’27 and Gordon Allen ’26 after the slate disbanded. 

In an interview with The Daily, ASSU Executive candidate slate Artem Arzyn ’26 M.S. ’26 and Raina Talwar Bhatia ’25 M.S. ’26 discussed the impact of national policies on research and international students, experience serving on the Graduate Student Council (GSC) and fighting for marginalized communities.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Thank you for speaking to me. Could you introduce yourselves?

Artem Arzyn (AA): I am a senior at this point. I’ll be finishing my undergrad next year and also a co-term in computer science. I’m in electrical engineering and linguistics on the undergraduate side, and I’ve been on the Graduate Student Council this past year.

Raina Talwar Bhatia (RTB): I’m Raina. I’m an international student from Mumbai, India. It’s also my senior year. Me and Artie actually met freshman year NSO. I’m studying bioengineering and international relations as a dual degree, co-terming in bioengineering, and the most important thing about me is I have three dogs that I love the most.

TSD: Specifically, what past experiences have helped prepare you for ASSU executive office?

AA: This past year, I have been on the Graduate Student Council. I’ve been the Faculty Senate representative for graduate students. I’ve also been the representative on a variety of committees with administrators related to this work. I’ve also been the liaison, effectively, to get information about international students and their safety on campus.

RTB: As an international student, I try to focus a lot on things that Stanford can do for the global community. For example, in the Bass Biology Building right here, I work at a lab that does research on how climate change and land-use change affect infectious diseases in Latin America. So I’m very passionate about making sure that undergrads have capabilities to keep doing these kinds of research that are probably going to be the first to get their funding [cut] with administrative changes. Additionally, I’m very passionate about policy work. I actually work within the Hoover Institution’s U.S.-India program on higher education policy.

TSD: Why are you running?

AA: If I’m being honest, I am running with hesitancy. I wasn’t originally planning on running. The two of us signed up on the last day, and that was after a lot of urging from the communities that are impacted — undocumented students, trans students, some of the grad students in the union — there has been a variety of people that asked me to run because they have seen the advocacy that I have done and they’re concerns that we need strong leadership moving forward to continue doing that work in the face of all of the changes.

RTB: [Something] that’s really motivated me to run: I recognize that Sanford’s work on a global stage is gonna get affected more and more with all of what’s going on, I knew that this was a moment where we need some level of voice from international students, as well as the groups that are currently most at risk because think about it, how many international students bothered running for ASSU?

TSD: Could you tell me a bit more about what you hope to accomplish in office?

AA: Honestly, a lot of it is continuing the work that’s already been done around students’ rights as students, students rights as people who are international, students rights related to free speech, especially with the University creating a free speech policy and then violating their own policy. Similarly continuing work for not just graduate students, but also undergraduate students, in supporting DEI initiatives.

RTB: Another thing that both of us are very focused on is the state of the dining halls on campus. Coming from India where a large portion of our population is vegetarian, I was appalled at the lack of vegetarian and vegan options for students. As well as, why are there micropstics and rats in the dining hall? That’s just not safe.

TSD: Do you have a campaign slogan?

AA: I mean, do you want us to come up with one?

TSD: Sure.

AA: Getting things done, not just saying that we will.

RTB: Less yapping, more doing, I would say.

TSD: Why should students vote for you?

RTB: First of all, because of various mix ups with the election commission, we haven’t had access to the $500 you’re supposed to to run for executive to spend on campaigning. So as of right now, we’ve spent literally zero dollars on the campaign. But I would say that if any of the ideas that we’ve outlined in this piece, anything we’ve said in the debate, and anything you know from us personally speaks to you, vote for us. We ask you to think about how your vote has changed given the ever changing landscape that we live in, because it’s not the same election that this would have been if this was a year ago. I don’t think that I would have been running if this was a year ago, but things have changed, we need change for the moment and I think that’s where Artie and I come in.

AA: This fight is not one that we fight alone. It is a fight that we [fight] with the people that are with us. And we are not alone, we are backed by a lot of individuals, we are backed by the Union leadership board, we are backed by a lot of people that have asked us to be here.

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