Ignite

In UTD’s most contested Student Government presidential
election, members of the Ignite ticket are pushing for transparency and lasting
change in SG.

Neuroscience senior Danni Yang, the presidential candidate
for Ignite, has served as both a senator for Student Government and head of the
Residential Student Affairs committee. Kyle Tupper, a finance junior, is the
vice presidential candidate and was unavailable for an interview at the time of
publication.

Yang said the word “Ignite” relates to the ticket’s vision
for lasting change.

“Ignite ties into this idea of creating foundational change
— because we don’t want to just have this one spark. When you ignite something,
you’re letting this whole thing catch on fire and create a lasting change just
like this domino effect,” Yang said, “We’re thinking of igniting something that
will last for a really long time.”

Yang, who has been in Student Government since the first
month of her freshman year, said the opportunities afforded to her by Student
Government inspired her to run for president.

“I have this huge passion for UTD and SG because I’ve had
amazing opportunities that I didn’t even think would have been possible coming
into college, and I really want to be able to just give back to these
organizations that have meant so much to me and really make lasting impactful
change on campus,” Yang said.

To create accountability and transparency for SG and its
senators, Yang proposes what she calls “100 percent involvement.”

“One specific action item we want to take is this idea of
100 percent involvement where we’re going to ask senators, when they come in to
Student Government, … to (go to) other organization meetings or philanthropy
events or anything that students host on campus and really talk to them and ask
them, ‘What can Student Government do for you?’” Yang said.

Another way Yang said she plans to increase accountability
is to add projects and the senators who proposed them to the Student Government
website.

Yang said she would also like to see more engagement with SG
on social media by creating short, weekly highlights of what SG is doing.
Another way Yang said she would like to increase communication with students is
by integrating SG with the UTD mobile app.

“We want to make the app something that all students do get
whether they’re coming in as a freshman or transfer student, and it really
helps them adjust to life on campus,” Yang said. “And integrating student
government in this app will also create another open channel for communication
where they could possibly message us directly.”

Yang said SG will push to increase downloads of the UTD
mobile app by advertising it to students during orientations.

Another project Yang said Ignite wants to sustain is mental
health awareness.

“We want to … give students access to a mental health
check-up whether they take an assessment or just increase (access) to mental
health resources,” she said.

UTD currently offers mental health evaluations through the
Student Counseling Center and offers services including individual and group
counseling.

Yang said to create lasting change, she wants to amend the
policy for how proposals are handled in Student Government.

“Currently when we do proposals for projects, students talk
about the impact they want to see through this project and why it’s beneficial
to students, but it’s in a very localized time schedule,” she said. “I would
love to add another component to this, in which senators are required to have
this impact statement: ‘What kind of impact would this project have, and what
kind of timeline do you want this project to extend towards?’” =

Yang said she enjoys the challenge of running in the most
contested Student Government election.

“I kind of joke to myself — I’m like, ‘You know, Danni, you
love challenges so you picked the one year when so many people are running,’” she
said.