Associated Student Government has begun their campaigns for the President and Vice President, who take office in Fall 2021. Voting opens on April 19, and goes through the 21, closing at 5.pm.
Shearrow and Edwards, Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates respectively, have both been involved in student government for the past three years, each of them having served as Senators previously, representing various student groups.
Shearrow is in his sixth year at CMU, and is currently president of Club Esports. He is majoring in Business Analytics with a minor in Political Science.
“I wanted to run for ASG president because I want to build a community together at CMU with every student, I wanted to be able to represent every single student’s interests, whether they’re from Montrose or WCCC, whether they’re first generation students to a third generation students,” Shearrow said. “I wanted to be able to empower them to go beyond recognition.”
Edwards has been in the Navy for almost eight years, and is currently a reservist. She’s planning to re-enlist for another two years. She also has finished her degree in Sports Management, and is currently getting her Masters at CMU.
“I think I’m of a very diverse background,” Edwards said. “I’ve been through hardships – my childhood was abusive, so I’ve had to fight through a lot, and I had to do it alone, for the majority of my life so far.
Edwards said that the people in her life have inspired her to keep fighting.
“For me, I really want to be that person to facilitate that environment, where every student, no matter where they’re going through, no matter where they’re coming from, no matter the support that they have, they feel empowered being a Maverick,” Edwards said.
Their campaign currently runs on three pillars: building together, empowering futures, and representing you (as in students).
“When we say we want to empower futures, what we want to do is make CMU more than just a place where you come and you get four year degree and move on. We want to make it a place where you have the resources, the network, the accessibility to things you need to make the next step into your career a little bit easier,” Edwards said.
For the first time in a few years, there is no incumbent for the Presidential and Vice Presidential positions. One of the questions to be answered is how student government will navigate next semester, with the new CMU president settling into their administration, and with COVID-19 still a concern.
“Experience. That’s what we’re relying on, in order to make the transition as smooth as possible going into next fall,” Shearrow said. “We’ve been in this for so long, we kind of don’t realize it anymore, and Selina and I, with everything we’ve gone through our entire journey to get to this point, we’ve been preparing pretty much our entire lives to help lead this transition into the next phase for CMU.”
There are a myriad of issues that Shearrow and Edwards want to tackle.
“We’ve heard issues about food insecurity. We’ve heard issues about mental health on campus. We’ve heard issues about parking,” Shearrow said. “Something that I really learned over the past year, going into having my hip replaced is that our campus isn’t very accessible, to be quite honest. And when I look outside when I’m in Student Life, and I see students push the accessibility button to open the door and it doesn’t open, it makes me want to jump out the window and go open that door for them.
Now, Shearrow is in a position where he can go open the door.
“That’s why I’m in this. I’m in this because now it’s my turn to hold the door open for every other student, and ultimately make sure that their experience at CMU is a little bit better than mine, because I want to be the person that I needed when I was a freshman,” Shearrow said.
Edwards said that CMU is ready to have tough conversations.
“Last year we saw a lot of issues, social issues. I think it’s naive to think that this shows those issues don’t exist on this campus. Because they do,” Edwards said. “We are ready to have those conversations as to how CMU can really advocate and protect our students, no matter race, sexual orientation, [anything]. I think we are in a position where we are ready to have all these hard conversations and push for things that we want that student wants.”
