ASSU executive candidates Brown and Berriman want to be ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Cardinal’

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 candidates Ava Brown ’26 and Will Berriman ’26 shared plans to streamline resources for Voluntary Student Organizations (VSO), implement community centered programming and understand the impact of decisions from the Department of Education on students.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Thank you for meeting with me. Could you share a bit about yourselves?

Ava Brown (AB): My name is Ava. I’m a junior. I’m studying data science. I think something that was important to Will and I about throughout this campaign is really community engagement, and that really stems from the various campus groups we’re involved with. I’ve run the Stanford TEDx Conference for three years. I’m team manager for the Stanford Equestrian team. I’m involved in the black community through [Divine Nine] Greek life.

Will Berriman (WB): I’m Will. I’m also a junior. I’m studying economics. Similarly very focused on community engagement. I’m a student researcher at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. I’m also on the leadership Board of Habla. We give free ESL lessons to Stanford’s workers that want to improve their English capabilities. And I’m also the IFC president and a fraternity council president. One of my main focuses so far has been trying to bolster philanthropic endeavors within the Greek community here. For instance, we had a very successful clothing drive a couple months ago, for a center in the Tenderloin that was facing a shortage of male clothing.

TSD: How have your past experiences equipped you for ASSU executive office?

AB: Our campaign is called “Your Friendly Neighborhood Cardinal”, and it’s really about community engagement. We met with a bunch of student leaders from across campus, like the [Black Student Union], the club sports, exec boards, Stanford Speakers Bureau, the [Multicultural Greek Council] president, just across the board to really get a sense of what was important to people. For me, I know policy wise, we were really interested in supporting VSOs. For us, that looks like tangible things like publishing an annual VSO handbook, so that you really know what the resources are, who to contact, how to get things done, and also aspects of simplifying within budget funding transfers. And then with DEI and everything with the Department of Education, we’re really committed to supporting cultural spaces, which I know are very important to some of the organizations that I am a part of.

WB: Another big part of our platform is community-centered programming. We have it scheduled by quarter. Fall quarter, people are coming back from summer break, we have brand new students on campus. We’d like a lot of simple get to know you events. Then in the winter, one of our main events we want to do is the Stanford Student Symposium. We want students, as individuals or student groups, to present projects they’ve been working on throughout the year that they’re passionate about. And they would be competing for additional funding from ASSU executive discretionary funds. But then what I’m personally most excited about is spring: we want a philanthropic-focused quarter. I’m from Pennsylvania, so a large part of my high school class went to Penn State. There’s a huge event they have every year. It’s a dance-a-thon. They’ve raised over $200 million for child cancer research. That’s something I would love to emulate here, especially because we have such a big base of passionate students who care about the community, care about these causes.

TSD: What motivated you to run?

AB: I think the goal for us really is community engagement. Something that really catalyzed this for me is I founded a speaker series this year called Black Voices, specifically to promote black voices within the student community, and it just brought very front and center for me that what you get out of community is what you put into it. Will and I are just really interested in investing and spending more time with a community that has done so much for us, so drawing on our wide networks with campus, from VSO leadership, IFC leadership, club sports, cultural organizations, and really just trying to foster community engagement within the diverse communities on campus.

TSD: What’s your campaign slogan?

AB: Our campaign slogan is “Your Friendly Neighborhood Cardinal” — perhaps a nod to Spiderman. For us and, for “Your Friendly Neighborhood Cardinal,” we’re really just looking to provide a safe space for everybody to feel like they are a part of the community and facilitate buy-in so that we can unite Stanford.

TSD: Building on that, could you speak on your campaign goals? 

AB: Not to keep saying it, but commuting engagement is huge for us: fostering that buy-in, getting people to really wanting to be out and about. Some of our primary goals are community center programming, which I’ll let Will touch on. But policy wise, to streamline VSO resources. Something else we would be super committed to doing day one is establishing a committee to exclusively look at the policy initiatives coming down from the Department of Education, just so that we can be really aware of how that policy impacts Stanford students.

WB: I can speak to the community center programming once again. We feel like it would be great to have events that just bring everyone together as a whole and especially events that harp on very specific values in Stanford student life. Also, just speaking to the committee for DOE, we’re super committed to supporting, for instance, international students who feel insecure with their F1 or H1B visas. Making sure the school knows we would continuously lobby the school to support those students. The school might have interests in their funding, but no, we want to represent the students and their safety and their rights. That’s our priority above all.

TSD: Why should students vote for you?

AB: I think that the appeal of “Your Friendly Neighborhood Cardinal,” and of Will and I, is just how broad the goal of community engagement is and the efforts that we have made throughout our time here on campus to really tap into the multifaceted aspects of Sanford. We think that community centered programming is a great way to do that to unite people behind shared goals. Our pitch is helping foster community engagement, making Stanford work for you, and just making it a place where everyone can really feel invited into the community.

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