Illustration by Earl Larrabee

Incoming ASUA President Cade Bernsen has plenty on his hands in the coming year: the search for a new UA president, inevitable budget cuts, class availability (or lack thereof), and unruly, tortilla-tossing students – oh my!

Given what Cade was able to put together during the election season, he certainly has demonstrated the ability to manage a variety of competing interests. But, as a method of ensuring he keeps his eye on the ball, here are five overarching themes that should guide Mr. Bernsen's presidency over the coming year.

1. Understand the limitations of the office.

Nothing is more irritating than a politician who promises things beyond his or her purview. Luckily, Mr. Bernsen has not done that yet. But there are always talkers: someone in ASUA (or someone running for ASUA) has been talking about getting CatCard accepted on University Avenue for years now – and to no avail. Unfortunately, despite good intentions, doing so is not within ASUA's authority. Leadership requires tangible, manageable goals, and something by which to measure success.

The ASUA president can measure success by the effectiveness of his or her lobbying: pushing the right buttons with the administration and the state government as the primary representative of the UA undergraduate population. Mr. Bernsen should see his job as that of a lobbyist, a representative of UA undergraduates, and operate within that framework.

2. Promote UA "civil society."

If classes and academics are the foundation for any university experience, clubs are certainly its connective tissue. Clubs offer a diversity of experience outside the chastened atmosphere of academics.

Admirably, ASUA does some great work supporting clubs on campus, especially in the areas of club funding, but it certainly could do more. Funding precedents in the ASUA senate are lamentably low. Funding precedents should be done away with, allowing the senate to fund each club based upon merits, not historical benchmarks. ASUA will inspire loyalty and cooperation with clubs by reframing itself as a reliable supporter of campus organizations. The Cade Administration should seek ways to increase appropriations for club funding and should push the senate to scrap funding precedents.

Matt Stone Columnist

3. Build cooperative relationships with GPSC, RHA, UA Foundation.

In that vein, ASUA should also seek ways to work more cooperatively with other representative organizations. The Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC) is a good place to start. By working intimately with GPSC to sponsor joint programs on campus and to push the administration collectively, the "us-and-them" attitude evident in undergrad-graduate student relations could be erased.

Likewise, promoting relationships with Residence Hall Association, which represents approximately one-third of the campus population and a disproportionate number of freshmen to boot, and the UA Foundation, the most visible representative of UA alumni, is critical. RHA is an organization on the up and up, recently landing National School of the Year for UA, a first in our school's history. The UA Foundation offers significant political weight from behind the scenes. Their voices should be heard.

4. Hold administrators accountable for negligence.

A mandatory meal plan? Sounds like bureaucratic largesse to me.

The fact that the mandatory meal plan idea is even on the table is troubling. For a student union in ostensible financial straits, it is hard to believe that we can read the Cactus Grill daily menu on a plasma, flat-screen TV, costing the Union and, subsequently, the students $3000 a pop.

Only when those in charge of making the business decisions of the student union (i.e., those that give the go-ahead to purchase plasma TVs) are held accountable, that's when the student union deserves our money. I would personally urge Mr. Bernsen to use all his political capital to kill the mandatory meal plan and ask for a more comprehensive review of why the student union is failing to produce profits.

Administrators need to realize that they will not balance their books on the backs of the students.

5. Lead.

An organization can only go as far as its leader is willing to take it, requiring solid, unwavering, and hard-working leadership. The student population may be marked by apathy towards ASUA; it is due simply to a lack of inspirational initiatives coming from the president's office. As an ASUA outsider, Cade has the distinct opportunity to breathe new life into a tiresome organizational bureaucracy, and we can only look forward to it.

We're looking for something bold. We're looking for leadership.

Matt Stone is an international studies and economics junior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.