Learn more about Travis Arbon’s opponent, Sen. Frank Smith III, who has wanted to be president since he joined USGD.
After a year focused on restructuring USGD, Barrett, the Honors College Sen. Travis Arbon said the best way to honor the students’ work is to carry out the newly established structure as president next year.
Arbon, a journalism freshman, was on the committee that created the new Senate bylaws this year, and currently serves on the government operations committee.
“I know how this government works and I know what it needs to more effectively help the Downtown students,” Arbon said.
Arbon is running for the USGD president position as current President Joe Grossman graduates this semester.
Arbon said Emily Antuna, his vice president of services running mate, will be a great asset to his campaign and USGD promotion. Antuna, a journalism freshman, currently serves as USGD’s director of public relations and sits on the Sun Devil Coalition local board.
“She’s done a fantastic job marketing events and initiatives for USGD,” Arbon said. “We think she fits the services position very well.”
Public policy freshman Matthew Saria is running as Arbon’s vice president of policy. Saria worked as the Sun Devil Coalition game-day coordinator this year — a position that Arbon said deals a lot with implementing policy.
“I work with the facilitator of SDC to go between him and all the vice presidents of policy at all the campuses to help with all the initiatives to put into play,” Saria said. “I work pan-campus, but I have a vested interest Downtown since I go there. I have the advantage of seeing how things work on every campus.”
One priority of Arbon’s is to create a “giant” ad campaign for USGD to increase student awareness and representation.
“I know one of Grossman’s goals was a full Senate and he didn’t reach that goal,” Arbon said. “We talk to students on the street but people don’t know what student government does. I want to make people more aware by using student government to promote itself.”
Besides visibility, Arbon said he wants to make the Downtown campus more involved with the downtown community.
“One of the visions for Downtown was that it was supposed to be similar to NYU — a campus, but part of the bigger city,” Arbon said. “But there’s definitely a separation. If we can get the students more engaged and work with the city of Phoenix, we can help the downtown community.”
Arbon said he also wants to focus on parking, textbooks and tuition, but admitted that USGD doesn’t have as much control over those issues as he’d like. He said student fees are one facet USGD can control.
“We want to make information and details about fees more accessible for students,” Arbon said. “If they know exactly where we are and when we meet, we can work together to implement, alter or get rid of certain fees.”
Taking over Grossman’s position includes taking over the struggles he’s involved in, most prominently the controversy with the Arizona Students’ Association. Arbon said he wouldn’t be against compromising with the organization.
“I feel like ASA has an important part they play in the university,” Arbon said. “I disagree with their use of student funds to promote a political agenda, and I disagree with their use of funds to sue ABOR. I am not in favor of completely removing them from the campus and university life.”
Arbon cited ASA’s work on student voter registration as a positive outcome of working with the student advocacy group. He said he hasn’t given much thought to the idea of filling Grossman’s empty seat on ASA’s board of directors.
Arbon has recently worked with his election opponent Sen. Frank Smith III on the University Center Information Commons’ hours-extension bill, which resulted in an extension of the campus library’s Friday hours of operation by one hour.
He said his willingness to see initiatives to completion and participation in the footwork are two factors that put him above his opponent.
“I like talking to people and hearing them and understanding them, that’s why I’m a journalism major,” Arbon said. “I’m not afraid to get up there and be the man on the street, so to speak, and engage with students on a personal level.”
Arbon said Smith wasn’t as active in seeing the library initiative through to the end. Arbon said he, Cronkite School Sen. Malcolm Brinkley and Barrett, the Honors College Sen. Josh Burton did most of the work for the initiative.
“Frank is very much an idea guy,” Arbon said. “He’s the guy who said we need to do things about library hours. It was myself, Josh and Malcolm who spent the most time on Taylor Mall collecting signatures. He hasn’t done a lot pertaining to the structure of USGD and working to get his initiatives accomplished.”
Arbon said his opponent’s greatest strength is his personality and drive to help the university.
“I like Frank,” Arbon said. “I don’t sense any animosity from him and I doubt I ever will. He cares about the university and I think people like that about him.”
One thing Arbon said he needed to work on is networking with those in positions of power for the university, city and state.
“Joe ran on his lobbying connections pretty heavily and I’m not that heavily involved with that,” Arbon said. “I’m not very well-connected like Joe to the City Council and governor’s office. But I’m willing to work hard on that.”
While Arbon considers his lack of connections a weakness, he said his greatest strengths in the campaign are Antuna and Saria because his running mates are his power play that can be used to help the campus and its students.
“I love this campus and I love this university and I think me, Emily and Matt can make things better for students,” Arbon said.
Editor’s note: Travis Arbon is a contributing reporter for the Downtown Devil but did not contribute to writing this article or any article about USGD elections.
Contact the reporter at kevin.p.fallon@asu.edu
