Endorsements for the ASUCR 2025-2026 elections

With the upcoming Associated Students of the University of California, Riverside (ASUCR) election season, it is pertinent to stay updated with potential representatives of next year’s student body. The purpose of newspaper endorsements is to help inform the public on candidates for various positions and help them come to better-informed decisions when the time to vote comes. Here are the endorsements for the 2025-2026 ASUCR elections candidates that the Highlander Editorial Board believes are especially qualified.

Executive Cabinet (ECAB) Candidate Endorsements: 

Executive Vice President: Sofia Jimenez

Current School of Public Policy (SPP) Senator Sofia Jimenez has shown commitment and engagement with the student body throughout her current term. By organizing the joint Haunted House event with the Ethnic & Gender Centers and spearheading ASUCR week, she has shown initiative and drive towards making ASUCR accessible and available to others. Furthermore, much of her work this year has been centered around outreach as she has collaborated with Costo Hall, Associated Students Program Board (ASPB), and KUCR 88.3FM with the aim of building relationships between ASUCR and campus organizations

Her goals for next year involve continuing the outreach being done so that the student body is more familiar with ASUCR and making official faces known to the public. Other long term goals involve increasing student activism and using ASUCR’s resources to support student advocacy groups. The SPP senator emphasized her time at the Highlander Action Committee and wanted to extend the passion shown in the space to other areas of ASUCR. Jimenez is a stickler for accountability but also professional in her conduct, making her fit to lead and control the discourse of the Senate Chamber.

Vice President of External Affairs: Briana Trujillo

Current member of Legislative Advocacy Committee Briana Trujillo has proven her ability to organize and lead events such as UCR’s first Latina Lobbying day and has represented the school in UC Wide Lobbying events in Sacramento and Washington DC.  

Trujillo’s goals include having fair hiring practices for her committee and increasing student legislative advocacy. She aims to inform students on how they can practice their right to protest given the current UC protocols in place. Her involvement in promoting programs such as UCDC has made her a familiar face for many students and her goals to hold community hours with the campus Ethnic & Gender Centers shows her dedication to serving UCR’s diverse student body.

Vice President of Finance: Uma Akundi

Uma Akundi, one of the two Bourns College of Engineering (BCOE) Senators for the 2024 to 2025 academic year, has proven herself to be a successful candidate for Vice President of Finance. She currently serves on the Finance Committee and has closely monitored the processes of the position. Senator Akundi acknowledged that ASUCR is a “bubble” that makes it difficult for students to join. 

She hopes to create workshops on financing student organizations for leaders of clubs, specifically treasurers or finance chairs, that would explain the various resources ASUCR can provide for them. Additionally, Senator Akundi aims to utilize polls as a way to gauge how ASUCR has been helping student organizations and how to improve their systems for allocating money to students. 

During her time as a BCOE senator, Akundi has witnessed how students were unable to participate in engineering competitions. She hopes to streamline the process for applying for grants, making it more accessible to students who are unable to take part in competitions due to a lack of funding. Beyond serving student organizations, Senator Akundi would like to implement finance workshops for personal finances so students can increase their financial awareness and budgeting skills. 

Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Brandon Edward Dunbar

Current member of Diversity Council and transfer student Brandon Edward Dunbar has demonstrated much needed familiarity with the Ethnic & Gender Center’s on campus. His prominent professional experience with diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) initiatives proves his ability to tackle this position properly. Dunbar aims to foster participation and passion in ASCUR as he believes officials have a duty to make their faces known to the public. 

Furthermore, Dunbar has experience working with Disneyland Resort where he wrote DEI guidelines and standardizing protocols across different departments. His short term goals center around outreach in creating steady communication with the Ethnic & Gender Centers as well as the student body. Throughout the year he plans to have all positions in ASUCR work towards uplifting student voices.

Extended ECAB Candidate Endorsements:

First-Time College Student Director: Alice Parra Rios

Alice Parra Rios, current College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Senator, hopes to educate, encourage and empower first year students. Following up on her current propositions as Senator, she plans to continue working to reinstate meal swipes at The Barn and create more cost effective meal plans. Senator Parra Rios believes that reopening meal swipes at The Barn would assist with overcrowding at the other locations on campus that take meal swipes, Lothian Residential Restaurant, Glasgow Residential Restaurant and NOODS: The Noodle Bar. 

Along with this, she hopes to ease the transition into college by working with organizations that are already working on the first year experience, such as Residence Halls Association (RHA) and National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH). Additionally, Senator Parra Rios would like to send out newsletters and surveys to communicate with first years on upcoming events and collect information on how ASUCR can assist them.

Legislative Branch Candidate Endorsements:

College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) Senator:

Jeevan Rao:

As a current CNAS Senator, Jeevan Rao has been working on two main projects: the creation of the South Asian Center and R’ Bus. Rao aspires to return to Senate to take the mantle of President Pro Tempore and mentor new senators. Senator Rao explained that they are in early stages of the process and currently collecting signatures from students to show interest for the South Asian Center. 

R’ Bus is a project that is attempting to reinstate a shuttle service that brings students to parking lots, the residence halls or apartments later at night. Due to the large number of students that have labs that end past 10 p.m., Senator Rao is working with the Green Campus Action Plan (GCAP) for a sustainable bus or van option to transport students to and from labs or classes. 

Senator Rao also hopes to make CNAS events more inclusive for students that are not pursuing medicine. To accomplish this, he would like to improve the research portal that CNAS students utilize to search for opportunities, specifically by introducing more professor labs rather than big name labs. 

Nabeeha Shaukat:

Serving as the current Senate Secretary, Nabeeha Shaukat has been able to gain experience by participating in many of a senator’s duties: drafting legislation, tabling for ASUCR and attending Senate meetings.

Her main goals are to improve research, mentorship and civic engagement. For research, she would like to streamline the opportunities that UCR has for CNAS students. Rather than students being bombarded by countless emails, she would like to have a consistent email sent from the CNAS administration that details opportunities for students, whether those be external, from faculty or from student organizations. 

In regards to her campus-wide goals Shaukat would like to work on increasing mentorship opportunities, providing assistance specifically for underrepresented groups such as transfer students and visa holders, and increasing civic engagement through elections so students are better represented by their representatives. She hopes to continue working on Scotty Eats and combating food insecurity on campus, as well as the collegiate recovery program resolution. 

Rohan Vig:

Second year environmental science major, Rohan Vig has plans to uplift commuters and increase transparency within CNAS. Vig has worked on the R’Garden referendum and wishes to increase transparency on how CNAS has handled students’ efforts to increase funding and resources for the project as well as address research equity. He explained that many programs, such as the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research, meant to help underrepresented communities in the biomedical sciences, have rescinded several applications due to budget cuts. 

Students are largely unaware of this due to the lack of communication from CNAS administration: a situation that Vig would like to remedy. Furthermore, he would like to ease the commuter experience by creating a commuter guide for students, improving the awareness of CNAS counselors as well as investing more in Basic Needs. His short term goals include having more research fairs, making people aware of careers in sustainability and having basic needs festivals and fairs. His long term goal is to establish a South Asian Student Center. 

From the Editorial Board: Behind the Endorsement Process

To maintain transparency on how we endorsed candidates, The Highlander is releasing the steps we took to ensure that the process was fair and unbiased. Prior to the beginning of the campaign season, The Highlander reached out to ASUCR’s Election Committee to have an email sent with information on how to be endorsed by the paper if the candidate was interested. The email entailed how to sign up for an interview with the News Team. These interviews act as a method of information for the Editorial Board to understand a candidate’s goals and the experience they have gained over the years. Using this information, as well as supplemental information from reports and meetings throughout the year, a profile was made for each candidate who had come for an interview. During a meeting of the Editorial Board, The Highlander discussed each of the interviewed candidates at length in order to determine who we would want to endorse as a paper. In order to receive an endorsement, a candidate needed to receive approval from 80% of the Editorial Board.

Candidates that completed an interview with The Highlander News team:

• For the Position of President: Leila Haidar
• For the Position of Executive Vice President: Sofia Jimenez
• For the Position of Vice President of Internal Affairs: Charles Russell and Rishika Salvi
• For the Position of Vice President of External Affairs: Rony Garcia and Briana Trujillo 
• For the Position of Vice President of Finance: Uma Akundi
• For the Position of Vice President of Sustainability: Anahita Hooshyari Far
• For the Position of Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Brandon Edward Dunbar and Neida Zamora
• For the Position of Personnel Director: Ian Tjan and Chloe Wang
• For the Position of Transfer Student Director: Mythreyee Shankara Narayanan
• For the Position of First-Time College Student Director: Alice Parra Rios
• For the Position of College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences Senator: Jose Del Angel
• For the Position of College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences Senator: Daisuke Armando Monobe, Molly Murray, Jeevan Rao, Nabeeha Shaukat and Rohan Vig
• For the Position of Bourns College of Engineering Senator: Bruce Riazi and Sarah Zohary
• For the Position of School of Public Policy Senator: Katie Chau and Pia Prashanth

Positions that did not reach out for an interview with The Highlander: 

• Vice President of Marketing & Promotions
• School of Business Senator
• School of Education Senator