President

About Yourself:

Hello, my name is Shivika Sivakumar and I am the Student Body President of University of California, Santa Cruz for the year 2020-2021. Twenty years, seven schools, five states, and two countries is my story. The world I come from is an interesting combination of Gujarati dandia, Delhi weather, Hyderabadi biryani, Bangalore traffic, Cupertino boba, and Santa Cruz beaches. Having been an Air Force Officer’s daughter, I had lived in many states within India before moving countries and relocating to California three weeks into High School. With every place, came new friends and opportunities to learn about different cultures and celebrate new traditions. As a result, I became very used to change and overtime developed the ability to adapt easily to new situations and handle uncertainties with positivity.

I would consider myself to be mostly an extrovert who loves meeting new people and getting to know people's life stories. My hobbies include painting, dancing, biking, playing badminton and hiking. Being a Computer Science and Politics double major, I am very focused and dedicated when it comes to academics but also very vocal and deeply involved when it comes to student leadership, advocacy, and representation. My hope is to combine my passion for Computer Science and Politics and use technology as a tool to solve problems in the society and help those in need. 

I am really excited for this upcoming year as your SUA President and can't wait to get started and get to know you all. So, please feel free to reach out to me at anytime if you need any help, support, or even if you just want to say hi!

Past Involvement:

Second Year (2019 - 2020):

• Vice President of External Affairs of College Nine Senate
• Student Union Assembly Appointed Representative
• College Guide at UCSC College Nine and Ten
• Outreach Officer for Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• UCSC Model United Nations (SlugMUN member)
• UCSC NAACP (EvCo member)
• GraceHacks Hackathon (Tech Lead)

First Year (2018 - 2019):

• Associate Elections Commissioner (Spring 2019 SUA Elections)
• Office of the President Intern (SUA Multimedia Manager) 
• Student Academic Senate (Secretary)
• College Nine Senator
• Okinawa Memories Research Initiative (Tech Team member)
• Society of Women Engineers (SWE member)

Office Initiatives

My primary goals as the Student Union Assembly President are to:

• Rebuild connections with students and mend relationships with organizations to increase transparency and outreach.
• Reform SUA to better address campus problems and implement actual changes that address key student issues.
• Represent students and be the voice of the UCSC student body in the administrative, local, state, and federal level.

Platform that addresses these goals is C-H-A-N-G-E

C - Crisis Management: Dedicated to addressing the ramifications of moments of crises, a well-equipped task force team will be created under the SUA office to serve the undergraduate students. This group will have a responsibility to keep our undergraduate body informed about accurate crisis information including availability of resources and its alternatives, to provide medical assistance where required, and to function as a liaison between administration, the Student Union Assembly, the undergraduate student body, and any involved third parties. The sole purpose of this task force is to be equipped to handle urgent situations.  

H - Helpline: To provide an informational hotspot, Helpline will serve as an online help desk service to answer questions about resources on campus in a simple, three step process: Navigate, Solve, and Report. Student employees will immediately answer these concerns after assessing the question. Depending on the situation, the student helper will guide the student towards the right resources, solve the issue the student is facing, or report it to administration as an issue to take on. This will serve as an additional avenue of support during events such as strikes or blackouts. Each step of help builds on the previous layer, and ensures every issue gets the proper support it needs. 

A - Agile: With the current situation of our world, there is a need for flexibility every step of the way - a method to adapt to the new circumstances of the world. For us, this is an implementation system where each step of our plan is split into short phases of work, implemented, and promptly improved upon based on feedback. This allows for quick adaptation to new upcoming circumstances.  

N - Navigating New Necessities: With our campus and wider community adapting to unprecedented times, Navigating New Necessities is a structure of campus-student acclimation programs aimed at responding to our instructional changes in Fall 2020 and beyond. This includes providing a smooth transition from virtual study back to campus life, and as well supporting technological needs as online classes continue. Through fun, themed events, informative workshops and resources based on a variety of student needs, this program is aimed at helping individual students and the broader community transition to a new quarter, whatever the circumstances may be. 

G - Guarantee Support: Rather than creating several new committees to address certain agendas, there are existing clubs on campus and offices that have initiatives that should be bolstered. For instance, this platform aims to support various student groups in efforts ranging from sustainability to strengthening minority communities to student advocacy. Instead of forming another team to tackle these issues, this platform will focus on allowing these passionate groups to achieve their goals through the support and backing of the SUA President. 

E - Engage: As all of these initiatives are implemented, a crucial portion of this platform is ensuring a line of communication is maintained with the undergraduate student body in order to increase transparency, accountability, and awareness. Particular target areas of note are communities and groups not normally associated or interested with SUA proceedings. Our goal is to broaden the horizons of who we reach, through school-wide newsletters, surveys, and social media efforts. This will be the outreach effort of the work occurring in the Office of the President. 

Fun Facts about Yourself:

I can speak four languages and understand eight different languages. Being from the Bay Area, I absolutely love boba; so hit me up if you ever want to go on a boba run :)