Four months into their term, the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) executive team is focused on building institutional knowledge and implementing long-term change within GUSA’s internal structures and Georgetown’s administrative processes, according to GUSA President Camber Vincent (SFS ’24) and Vice President Alyssa Hirai (SFS ’24). 

Vincent and Hirai have overseen the implementation of short-term policies including the return of weekend Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) services and longer-term initiatives, such as planning for the new Capitol Campus in downtown Washington.

Vincent and Hirai sat down with The Hoya to discuss their administration’s successes thus far, ongoing projects and goals for the remainder of their term. 

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Give us a rundown of your term so far. 

Vincent: The term so far has been a little bit hectic. A lot of it has been oriented around rebuilding institutional knowledge and our structure. I feel like we’ve gotten a decent amount of good work done during our time so far. A lot of time that I’ve spent both last semester and this semester has been really focused on projects that will largely only impact students long after I’m gone, and after a lot of these students are gone. That’s the other part that’s a little bit hectic, is just being unable to clearly dictate what the impact of my work is going to be, because it won’t be realized for several years. 

In terms of policy, what would you say has been your administration’s biggest accomplishment so far?

Vincent: Getting GUTS buses back on weekends. I like to highlight that one just because I think that it directly impacts students’ daily lives the most out of the work I’ve been able to do, which is one of the things that the Student Association struggles with a lot. It’s just kind of hard to directly impact day-to-day lives with the policy work that you can do. So whenever we have successes like that, it’s great. Finalizing the collegiate readership program. Financial Accessibility’s established a fully fledged bridge summer emergency housing program. With Capitol Campus planning, we took the plan from a very rough stage to a far more developed stage. I’ll hope to come back in four years and ask, “Do you guys know about Capitol Campus? Do you like it?” And I hope people say yes. Our general expectation is that most people are going to say no. 

The other thing that I’m proud of is the work that we’ve done building out of the GU Protects Racists movement. We’ve taken a lot of demands that were argued for in these protests, the larger demands about Black students on campus. Envisioning a new communal space for Black students on campus outside of the Black House. Revamping how we do bias response on campus. Bias navigators, people who are there to walk you through part one all the way through part 100 of the entire bias process system. 

Hirai: For me, it’s not one specific policy, but reestablishing relations and reestablishing lost institutional memory. A lot of things that used to be normal on campus were lost completely during COVID. So I think reestablishing those relationships with admin and clubs and trying to revive and make sure that we pass it down to the next administration, I think is the most important project.

What has it been like working with university administration throughout your term? 

Hirai: I think it’s been a positive experience so far. We’ve been having a lot of different meetings this semester with the new student affairs vice president.

Vincent: She’s been really great. She has been a phenomenal resource. At the end of the day, you can ask and ask and advocate and plan and do all the work for admin themselves, but unless an admin actually says yes, nothing gets done. Generally speaking, it’s been a really good working relationship with them that I appreciate. 

What more do you hope to get done during the rest of your term? 

Vincent: Our big focus is on the upcoming election — we have a referendum on increasing the student activities fee. Clubs currently have to go so far, harass every single department on campus to try and get a couple extra hundred dollars for events. It’s just not a good system right now. We also want to try and get back to what GUSA used to do. We used to have a lot more events that were public-facing that could bring the community together.