Photo Courtesy of Barbara Muziotti
Presidential candidate Maria Cuesta and Vice Presidential candidate Colin McAulay share their initiatives for student representation, university life and protecting DEI.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited for clarity. The full recording of the interview can be viewed on the Mason Cable Network.
Fourth Estate reached out to all four tickets for the Spring Student Body Election. Both McAuley-Cuesta and Bekele-Navid participated in interviews. Curtis-Cora did not respond to an invitation to interview, and Faris-Rawat cancelled an interview with Fourth Estate shortly before the scheduled time.
BY BRANDYN FRAGOSA, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER, ERICA MUNISAR, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, AND AIDAN JACOBS, CONTRIBUTOR.
The Cuesta-McAulay ticket was invited to share goals of their platform with Fourth Estate for the 2024 Spring Student Body Election. Sophomore Aidan Jacobs moderated questions selected by the Fourth Estate team. Students may vote in the Presidential Elections from March 25 to March 29.
Please introduce yourself.
Maria Cuesta: “I am Maria. I’m an international student from Colombia. I am a Sophomore studying Government International Relations and Economics. I’m happy that you guys are giving us a chance to speak about our platform, thank you.”
Colin McAulay: “I’m Colin McAulay and studying International Security and Law, SCHAR School, Junior year at Mason, doing this for a long time and am excited to be running for Vice President.”
What motivated each of you to run for Student Body President and Student Body Vice President?
Cuesta: “We have been involved in the Mason community. We go to different clubs [and] we interact with students every day. Last semester we stood out in Wilkins Plaza every Tuesday. We spoke with students [saying], ‘Hey, how can we improve Mason?’ Hearing their voices [and] concerns allowed us to understand what was happening in Mason.”
“Our abilities to connect with not just Mason students, but administration has given us networking and experience in order to help students. That has been a big motivation hearing students wanting us to be in these positions and representing them.”
McAulay: “I’ve got a love and drive for public service. When I found the opportunity to join Student Government a couple of years ago, it really confirmed that for me. Being able to do this kind of work [has] been fulfilling. I love being a part of the community [and] representing the community. For Senior year [with] the experience [and] skill… running for Student Body Vice President, along with Maria, was the right move.”
What experience or skills make you qualified for the position?
Cuesta: “I think I am a people’s person. I like communicating with people. I love working with people. It’s my passion. It’s what I have been doing since I was in Colombia, Kenya and here in the United States… People need a President who is connected and understands the students, but also [a President] who’s not afraid to reach out to administration and speak to them [about] demands that students want.”
“Understanding how Student Government works is also beneficial, because if we don’t know how Student Government works in the Senate and Cabinet, then how are we supposed to run Student Government effectively? That has allowed us to know how can we improve it to be more effective, reach a bigger student body and be more effective in general.”
McAulay: “My goal is to be a United States diplomat. I want to work for the Department of State. [The] skills that will come along with that is what makes me unique in running for this position [such as] my diplomatic ability, my ability to create relationships [and] my ability to build coalitions within the Student Government. My number one skill that I brought to the table was forming the relationships after years of [being in] the [Student Government].”
“It’s allowed me to get to know both the student body and the administration. The administration at this university knows me by first name [and] you know me as well as any other student here. I regularly work with them [and] meet with them. Even while I’m not in the Student Government at the moment, I still serve on many boards, different representative positions and committees… I’m regularly in contact with them. That’s what my experience has been able to give me in terms of running for this position.”
Could you introduce to us your platform?
Cuesta: “Our three big pillars are student representation, university life and protecting and promoting DEI… We also focus on university services. For example… one of the big demands is parking. Unfortunately, we can’t bring the expense down but we can reduce the cost. In a platform, we have different ways to do that. Academics… making scholarships more available for students, and making relationships with our government here in Virginia, Fairfax, and in general.”
McAulay: “Every piece of our platform is intertwined with those pillars. If we want the administration [and] the student body to understand anything about our campaign when they’re going to vote, those three values are what we want every vote for us to be supporting. Student representation means putting students in the room when big decisions are made. Many of the large decisions where millions of [tuition] dollars are spent at this University, students aren’t represented when those decisions are made. We [were] the 15th most depressed campus in the country according to polls, and having a strong student life is the only way to combat that. [With] promoting and protecting DEI, we’re in an existential moment in Virginia where we have a government and a governor that’s appointing predatory [Board of Visitors] that are trying to take away the support for important student organizations for thousands of students.”
[The Cuesta-McAulay platform cited both the Princeton Review and a deleted ConnectU TikTok. According to the Princeton Review, Mason was ranked the 11th most depressed campus in 2019. Mason was ranked 15th in 2024 according to the TikTok. Fourth Estate could not verify the ConnectU source as true.]
How do you intend to address the issue of food insecurity here at Mason?
McAulay: “We worked with Hannah Covey on writing a platform. Hannah is a [Mason Bonner leader] [and has] worked on food insecurity across many organizations… She was able to give us some great ideas [to assist] the Food Recovery Network… They’re partnered with Sodexo, which is a company [whose] contract ends in a year from now. They may not be at this university. We want to ensure that programs like [the] Food Recovery Network, which takes food and repurposes it to allow students who are food insecure to have it for free… stick around.”
“The [Virginia State Council Of Higher Education] has recently passed a [bill] to survey public universities in Virginia to find the actual amount of students that are food insecure. We want to make sure that the SCHEV has every tool necessary to get an accurate assessment because the [Hunger-Free Campus Grant Program] bills in Richmond need to pass. They did not pass this year…”
“There needs to be education [and] students need to understand that their fellow students are food insecure…on any college campus, anywhere between 29 to 37 percent of students are food insecure. There needs to be a larger food insecurity swipes program at this university. Sodexo can afford it, we’re at 2000 swipes that are given out to students for food insecurity… Last year the program had 25 students, this [year’s] program could have 50 students… we’re looking at thousands of students who are food insecure on this campus. There are so many programs that we want to put the weight of this campaign behind to put the pressure on the university…”
Cuesta: “[We want to bring] our Mason community together through community actions and volunteers… [such as] partnering with organizations and clubs like Greek Life or our cultural organizations so that we can have a volunteer base [for] Patriot Pantry.”
How will your platform address accessibility for Mason students?
McAulay: “Yeah, so we partnered with UBU, which is the Neurodivergent student community here at Mason, on writing our accessibility portion of the platform… Adam Rizzoli and Zoe Winter were the writers for this part of the platform. The biggest one is [wanting a] Disability Resource Center. There are thousands of students who are registered with Disability Services and they don’t have a space on this campus. UBU has created a space in the meanwhile, they created office hours. They’re renting rooms typically at Johnson Center, floor three, where students who are registered with Disability Services or neurodivergent are always welcomed in a sensory-friendly space. But a Disability Resource Center [and] sensory-friendly dining hall would be huge for that community. There’s an allergen-free dining hall that is a great start. With a few small changes, we can make that space sensory-friendly. These kinds of principles are what Adam and Zoe want to see for their community and we want to make sure that we give the weight of the Cuesta-McAulay campaign.”
Cuesta: “We’re having [Sensory Friendly Formal] this April 5, from seven at The Hub. If you want to go and learn [and] have a fun time in a sensory-friendly center, be there.”
How will you promote a positive work environment and collaboration with Student Government?
McAulay: “Student Government is… a semi-professional organization. The business of the organization is important. There’s passion behind it and with the nature of the Senate and its debate format, not everyone is always going to be on the same page. But when we’re focused on the mission, when we’re focused on working for students, when we’re focused on taking direction from students, we think the organization can stick together, and we want to lead an organization that has a unified goal… That’s how we want to breed a positive work environment.”
Cuesta: “We just need to promote collaboration in general. There is a huge culture of ‘I’ instead of ‘we’, so changing that pronoun of like, ‘Hey, this is not like my issue, this is our issue, because at the end of the day, we’re trying to work together to accomplish something. Giving the space for Student Government members and our community to be together, sit together and tackle something together, it’s a way that we can change that negative culture and move forward into actually doing positive change here on campus.”
How do you plan to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion?
Cuesta: “One of our biggest things in our platform is creating a coalition between all the umbrella organizations. If we give people this space to come together, we can talk about issues that affect our community [and] promote collaboration between these clubs. Because one of the things that Mason is missing is not university life… it’s unity, its seeing that university life in our campus… It’s that ability for all of us to be together and show what Mason is, because we are a diverse community… Bringing everyone together is one way that we can promote diversity and inclusion here on campus.”
McAulay: “I think she nailed it.”
What is your vision for enhancing that campus life?
Cuesta: “Well, [coalitions are] one of them. The second one is also doing big events like Tailgates…. we partnered with Greek Life. Also things like food truck Thursday… that Colin also came up [with during] our talks with our students here in the JC. [There are] other things like Fridays at Mason.”
McAulay: “Our goal for Friday’s at Mason is to take the student leaders we know… and get everybody in the same place at the same time. We want to create an event that everyone knows their friends are at. People go to events because their friends are there. With our relationships, with the trust that student leaders have in us, we think that we can create a space in which all the organizations at the university can be in the same place. Whether it’s professional, social, cultural, special interest, we think there’s a space for all of it. And Friday’s at Mason is our goal to create that and it’s our goal to create that culture of going out. You know, Friday night, around seven o’clock, every other week and knowing you’re gonna see your friends and know and you’re gonna see your favorite people out there doing that thing.”
How do you both plan to work with university administration to advocate for students?
McAulay: “I work for Rose Pascarell as a student assistant with the vice president of University Life. I’m very comfortable in that space and they’re comfortable with me… They’re gonna get the honesty out of me. The reason they like me is because they know they’re gonna get the truth. When I’m in disagreement with them, they’ll know, and we’ll set up another meeting and we’ll continue to work on it.”
“But there’s never been a point where they’re sick of me. There’s never been a point where they can’t have me in the space anymore because they don’t see the productivity in it. There’s a lot of initiatives we’ve worked on in the past that, they took a long, long time. They took many, many meetings where we didn’t get what we wanted [such as] the Mandatory Student Fee [and] the Energy Efficiency Resiliency Action Plan to get us to carbon zero and carbon neutrality… That took many conversations, but they were won with civility and they were won with respect. That’s how we plan to work with the administration.”
Cuesta: “Something valuable that we have is that they respect us. It’s because we are respectful to them as well. So having that relationship, having that ability for not just them listen to us, but also us listening to them, is what has made it effective for us to have that relationship with administration.”
Colin, will you continue your position with Vice President Pascarell if elected Student Body Vice President?
McAulay: “If elected Student Body Vice President, I wouldn’t continue my position within Merten Hall.”
What sets your platform apart from other candidates, and why do you think students should vote for you?
Cuesta: “Well, a lot of things set our platform apart… [such as] university life… bringing everyone together, unifying organizations together… Fridays at Mason… Parking [is] one of the biggest things our commuters and on-campus students worry about because it’s a lot of money. But also talking about first gen [and] undocumented students… I’ve worked with the First Gen+ Center as an UndocuAlly Trainer and one of the biggest things or issues that we have is that we don’t have a huge ally network here in our campus.”
McAulay: “I think what sets us apart is the legitimacy of our pillars for the campaign. When it comes to student representation, I know we’re the only campaign with the influence and the connections to properly fill the positions necessary on the boards, committees, commissions and task forces that we want student representation on. I know that we’re the only campaign that can throw the events and that could invigorate the student life that we want to see because of our connections with social organizations… When it comes to promoting and protecting DEI, we’re the only campaign calling it how it is, which is that there is an existential threat on cultural organizations, and black, brown and gay students at the school and the support they receive from this university. So, being we’re the only campaign talking about these issues, talking about them the way they are, that’s as well connected as we are, that’s what sets us apart.”
