SURGE Party’s platform includes efforts to address financial transparency and water quality.

As spring lifts its sleepy head and we brace ourselves for the last of midterm exams, the University of Iowa Student Government will welcome a new administration with the upcoming elections on March 28 and 29. UISG is a governing body that advocates for undergraduate students at Iowa and distributes the roughly $1.8 million in student-activity fees to various causes and numerous student organizations on campus each year.

The party to Serve Undergraduates on Campus through Representation, Growth, and Empowerment has a platform and candidates who display immense work ethic, passion, and skills to build on the work of previous UISG administrations. Our members combined represent participation and leadership in more than 100 organizations on campus as well as majors from journalism to biomedical engineering to undecided (as so many of us start out). It is our hope that we can go beyond your expectations. Combined, the SURGE Party has more than 16 years of experience in UISG, but it is also our hope that including fresh voices will invigorate the ability of student government to stand up for all of you and do what individuals may not be able to accomplish on their own.

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We want to create a centralized forum for students to talk about specific courses and professors. To ensure access to affordable groceries, we want to work with the city of Iowa City on a South Side shuttle to take students to Walmart and Aldi. We also want more  filling stations for water-bottle available and expanded flex-meal hours, so students can take care of their physical health. To address the water quality on campus, we want to advocate for the university water plant. Our initiatives also include more transparency for UISG’s financial documents, so you can keep UISG accountable for how student-activity fees are distributed.

Our goals are far-reaching, and some may say impossible. But to that we say, everything starts somewhere, and we want to start here, with all of you. SURGE with us, and vote on MyUI March 28-29.

— Yuejia Gu

candidate for senator at-large, SURGE Party