When Rasha Elwakil and Fletcher Port entered the race to be the next UPUA president and vice president, they built their platform off of seven simple words. Your voice. Your future. Your Penn State.

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Elwakil, a junior from Westchester, New York, has had a whirlwind of a year serving as the vice president of UPUA’s 19th assembly alongside Zion Sykes, this year’s UPUA president.

While Elwakil found this year to be rewarding and an honor, she’s also seen how much great work UPUA has done and wants to steer that forward.

As UPUA vice president, Elwakil created the Accessibility Task Force, a huge passion project for the New York native.

“As someone who has a sister with nonverbal autism, really just helping to alleviate cognitive, physical, and digital barriers was super important to me, especially getting that firsthand perspective,” Elwakil said. “We’ve had different student organizations and centers sit on this accessibility task force, and we talk about how we can make Penn State more accessible for all students to ensure that they’re getting the most out of their Penn State experience.”

With her experience on the task force, Elwakil knew there was more to be done at Penn State. After working alongside Sykes, Elwakil had to make one of the most important decisions of her candidacy, picking a vice president. Although this selection process would be daunting, Port’s initiative and dedication caught the eye and admiration of Elwakil.

“Fletcher is honestly probably the most dedicated person I know. He’s really helped just improve the legislative body so much this year,” Elwakil said. “Even when he was the chair of campus operations, he did so much great work. I tell everyone he’s the most organized person ever and so passionate about what he does.”

The respect is mutual as Port, the current speaker of the assembly and junior from Annapolis, Maryland, praised Elwakil for helping to shift the culture of UPUA and making sure its members feel appreciated in the work they put forth.

“It’s very demanding for a lot of our representatives to come in every single week and give six or seven hours at the low end,” Port said. “Legislators felt rewarded in the work that they were doing. They felt like they could see results, and then on that tail end of it, students also felt like they could see those results.”

This year, Port and Elwakil put together strong legislation they feel they can build off.

“We passed more legislation than ever before, but we didn’t want that to be a one-off, and so I spent time with our chief justice and with our parliamentarian to really try to figure out how can we better the UPUA structure ahead of next year,” Port said.

Aside from passing an impressive amount of legislation, Elwakil cited the importance of creating a strong community within UPUA that would make its members driven to create legislation to further strengthen the Penn State community.

“How can you represent a community if you’re not present in that community?” Elwakil noted as her mindset while vice president.

Elwakil dove head first into immersing herself in the Penn State community. As the vice president of DEI on the Panhellenic Executive Council, DEI chair for Lion Ambassadors, and a member of the Presidential Leadership Academy, Next Gen Leadership Academy, and the Millennium Scholars Program, Elwakil has woven herself into the fiber of the Penn State community.

While her time seems limited, Elwakil says she thrives off of having a busy schedule but also loves meeting new people. Through the connections made in the countless clubs she’s involved in, Elwakil finds connecting with others to be one of the best parts of being highly engaged in the Penn State community.

“Running from another meeting to another meeting means I can talk to one new person, and then another new person, I think is so cool,” Elwakil said.

Elwakil is also heavily invested in maintaining diversity, equity, and inclusion at Penn State. As a person of color herself, the vice president noted the importance of empowering minority communities at Penn State this past year while working to help everyone.

“I worked on the accessibility task force, but I’ve also worked on how we can increase racial equity. How can we teach about different environmental justice issues?”

Given the tense nature of campus this past year due to the arrival of President Donald Trump during his campaign trail, as well as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests held on HUB Lawn, Elwakil emphasized the importance of being a resource to bridge the gap between the Penn State administration and its students.

“It was really just being approachable for students. A lot of students came up to me with concerns. As someone who does get to interact with administration and who does keep up with the news daily, I really felt like being approachable for students to ask me questions and voice their concerns, I think, has really been super helpful,” Elwakil said.

A strong mission of Elwakil and Port is to help bring transparency to Penn State students and dismantle misinformation. Creating a UPUA blog post as well as hosting UPUA office hours for the UPUA president, vice president, and speaker enlightened the pair on how important it is for Penn State students to stay up to date on what is happening within the current administration.

With a campaign platform broken into four areas — financial accessibility, infrastructure and sustainability, student well-being and government relations, and administrative transparency — the duo is striving to use their passions to address the main concerns of Penn State students while dismantling the gap between students and the administration.

“I was the chair of campus operations, and so infrastructure and sustainability is a big passion of mine. Rasha has always had a very big passion for student well-being, and then the other thing that you kind of find is with affordability and financial accessibility,” Port said. “Rasha and I are two out-of-state kids, and so when we appreciate that there are people out there that are looking for answers from the administration. I bet students are looking for us to give them answers.”

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Being two out-of-state students and acknowledging these financial burdens have given the pair a unique perspective on the importance of needing more communication and support from the administration to help alleviate these economic burdens.

“It’s on the administration to communicate a place, a platform where students can find scholarships, that’s going to be priority. Those two pillars, we’re not just putting in there because they affect other people. We’re putting in there because we know they affect every person,” Port said.

To create a stronger and more passionate community, Elwakil noted how creating more transparency can alleviate student concerns, such as where their student fee money goes or what’s happening across the university.

“Having students very aware of what’s going on, for the university that they pay for, is super important and crucial,” Elwakil said.

Emphasizing their passion for sustainability, especially as a mechanical engineering major, Port highlighted the importance of allowing students to have a deeper connection within their education through sustainability. While it may seem small, Port noted that simple changes such as switching Penn State fleet vans to electric and replacing current lawnmowers with electric alternatives are tiny changes that can make a huge impact on Penn State’s carbon footprint.

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Simply put, Port states he believes investing in sustainability is investing in the future.

Elwakil aims to increase student well-being, another passion of hers, by implementing wellness days throughout the semester.

“University students are probably one of the most stressed-out people,” Elwakil said. “You have to balance your academics, your extracurriculars, your social life, your personal well-being, and so just getting at least one to two extra days a semester is really crucial to have that reset day.”

With a list of accomplishments already under the pair’s belt from this past year, the duo is more motivated than ever to get back to work and advocate for the students of Penn State.

“I don’t even really care if five years from now people are like ‘Fletcher and Rasha were the ones that did it’, but I hope my legacy is found in the work the UPUA is doing five years from now, and less so if my name was ever attached to it,” Port said.

With four days left in the election cycle, Port and Elwakil are running against Mike Fowler and Ben Lindgren as well as Joshua Meert and Samuel Conway. Elections will take place on Wednesday, April 2, and folks can cast their vote at vote.psu.edu.