Vice president of the Associated Students University of Idaho, Joseph Garrett, is running for president alongside current Chief of Staff Julie Attinger. Their campaign seeks to engage, connect and unite the student body.
Garrett and Attinger’s main initiatives focus on engaging, connecting and uniting. The engage aspect will center around bringing the university community together after the past year of social distancing due to COVID-19.
“We really want to engage the students in a community centered campus, because over the past year we have not had that,” Garrett said.
To connect is to adapt academic platforms and applications, Attinger said. They want to centralize UI applications to be more accessible. Another part of connect would involve eliminating BbLearn and transitioning to Canvas.
“A really big thing that’s happening right now is we’re trying to get a student resource app going,” Attinger said. “This would be a centralized place for all student platforms.”
The last part of their initiative is to unite the UI community and prioritize including all members.
“The first thing we want to do with this is make everyone feel a part of the Vandal family,” Garrett said. “We really want to prioritize diversity and inclusion efforts come this next year.”
Both Garrett and Attinger share mutual experiences as former ASUI senators. Garrett served as a senator during his first two years at the university. Attinger has served as a senator for one year. They’ve been able to spend the past year working together under current ASUI President Lauren Carlsen. Attinger has worked under Carlsen’s cabinet as director of finance in addition to chief of staff.
The duo decided to run together after Garrett proposed the idea to Attinger in January. Garrett said that Attinger enthusiastically agreed, and they’ve been working together on the campaign since.
“I really wanted someone who I knew that I would work well with and is an incredibly hard worker,” Garrett said. “Julie fit all of those categories overwhelmingly.”
Attinger attributed her experience working behind the scenes in her positions to giving her knowledge on current projects going on within ASUI. She credits Carlsen and Garrett for setting the example of the executive office.
“Just working closely with Lauren Carlsen and Joe, I’ve seen firsthand what the president and vice president have to do,” Attinger said. “Going forward, I know what would be expected of me.”
Garrett associated the current ASUI members with paving relationships with faculty and administration members, such as Dean of Students Blaine Eckles and President Scott Green. He wants to continue establishing those connections.
“We’ve formed relationships with them that’s allowed us to get into a room with them and tackle these projects we’re running on,” Garrett said.
Garrett believed one of his main accomplishments in ASUI was helping create a senate with a notable dynamic. He acknowledged past and current president pro tempores, Aaron Bharucha and Jackie Uhling, for assisting him in projects and cultivating a productive environment.
Attinger oversees 12 members in the ASUI legislative cabinet and has found it rewarding to assist in their projects. She doesn’t participate directly in all projects but enjoys offering a guiding hand.
“Being able to work with them and see them grow as well has been just super rewarding for me personally,” Attinger said.
Sierra Pesnell can be reached at [email protected]