The Nexus compiled profiles of the 2024-25 Associated Students elected officials to reflect on their past year in office. As they look back on their campaign platforms, we asked our elected officials to tell us about their successes and shortfalls throughout their terms in office. The term in reviews for the other executives can be viewed at dailynexus.com and/or in our May 22, 2025, print edition.
The 2024-25 Associated Students President, Nayali Broadway, reflected on her past year in the office, particularly highlighting special projects in her office such as Linkedin Learning and mental health initiatives.
Broadway highlighted her long-term project Linkedin Learning and having a physical presence on campus. Maddy Fangio / Daily Nexus
Prior to becoming president, Broadway was a senator in the 74th senate. She ran on a platform of mending the fractured campus climate and continuing her work on mental health and racial justice, as well as advocating for affordable housing, food security and divestment of student funds from human rights violations occurring in Israel and Palestine.
“I feel pretty good about the year. I feel like my office did an amazing job pushing out projects and events, especially because a lot of the people that we hired were new and didn’t have any experience, like very little to none. So I’m really proud of what my office has accomplished this year,” Broadway said.
After months of planning since the summer, a long-term project of Broadway’s — LinkedIn Learning, a platform that would allow students to earn professional certificates which show up on their LinkedIn profiles — is coming to fruition. She said they were able to secure a contract for students and are in the process of solidifying Duo Multi-Factor Authentication sign-in before beginning a six-month pilot program.
The project faced delays due to communication issues with UC Santa Barbara Human Resources, according to Broadway. Eventually they decided to pursue a student contract separate from Administration’s contract with money from the Associated Students (A.S.) High Impact Project fund.
“So for students it’ll serve as almost like a supplement to more career services,” Broadway said. “I want to go into human resources post-grad, and we don’t have a human resources major or anything like that, so it would be beneficial for me.”
She said the mental health commissioners in her office focused on the events Destress & Decompress, a mental health town hall — which included panelists from Student Health; Health & Wellness; Campus Advocacy; Resources & Education (C.A.R.E.) and Student Affairs — a Green Journal Project collaboration and a Mental Health Monday Instagram series.
Broadway said her lowest points in office this year were writing vetoes on three separate occasions, which she said was “unexpected.”
The first was on Feb. 7, regarding proposed constitutional amendments to A.S. Legal Code, which would have impacts on student powers over A.S. career staff. In her veto, Broadway said the motion “lacked review from campus partners” and did not “fit into the University system.”
On March 7, Broadway issued another veto, regarding the Senate’s rejection of Kamaya Jackson as co-chair of the Student Commission on Racial Equity (S.C.O.R.E.) “without giving proper justification.”
The third was an April 18 veto on the Spring General Election ballot, which said the Judicial Council should adjudicate allegations of membership rights violations prior to proceeding with the election. This veto resulted in an injunction on the ballot and a two-week delay in voting.
“I don’t think this response to those vetos would ever be good, necessarily, or positive. But I mean, it definitely was very unexpected. I was hoping to not have to write any [vetoes] this year, so to end up having to do three, just kind of threw me,” Broadway said.
The first two of her vetoes were turned over by the Senate through a vote, which Broadway described as “unfortunate.”
“By legal code, technically, the way the process works is if the Senate makes a motion that the president decides should be vetoed, the president has until the Friday after, I think until 6:30 p.m., to officially issue that veto. And then the Senate typically waits until the next senate meeting to hear a statement from the president on more detail why they issued that veto,” Broadway said.
Previously, Broadway described feeling “villanized” by the Senate, which has not changed. She said that since last quarter, her relationship with the Senate as a whole is not much better.
“Unfortunately, those first two times the Senate overturned it within 24 hours of me issuing the veto, so they didn’t even necessarily get to hear my clarification on why I issued the veto,” she continued.
After a tumultuous period within the Association and across campus last year, Broadway said the campus climate has improved, mainly due to other people in A.S.
“The campus climate is definitely better than it was last year,” Broadway said. “But I don’t think I necessarily did anything to fix that. I think it was simply just the people that came into office.”
She said that although campus climate is not as outwardly hostile, the university administration often does not take student leaders seriously, and she wants her successor to emphasize students as a priority.
“I think even though I guess publicly it looks better, our campus climate, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. I feel like that will probably never change, and I feel like I definitely could have done more to make sure that work was getting done, but I feel like that’s something that I could also pass on to Le Ahn [Metzger],” Broadway said.
Broadway was only able to get in contact with Chancellor Henry T. Yang once since her last meeting with him in January, and met with UC President Michael V. Drake once a quarter alongside the Council of UC Presidents. She said their main focus has been to push ways to help students feel safe and provide them with resources in light of visa revocations under the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) scares around UC campuses and communities.
“President Drake’s response to us, it tends to be lackluster most of the time. He tends to dance around the question. So that’s been pretty frustrating. It’s been kind of hard to get a straight answer out of him,” Broadway said.
When running for office, Broadway said one of her priorities would be to make herself accessible to the student body. She said this quarter, especially, she has made efforts to make herself more “approachable” by being a physical presence around the community.
“I feel like most of the time, especially in the fall, I feel like I was in my office a lot. And I feel like it made me seem like, ‘Oh, she’s not approachable, we don’t really see her.’ So I feel like I made more of an effort to just be around campus or go to more events, and that’s something that I hope Le Ahn [Metzger] does as well,” Broadway said.
Broadway commended her successor, third-year global studies, communication and Spanish triple major Le Ahn Metzger’s experience in the president’s office two years ago, as well as her work around mental health. She aims to train Metzger in depth, particularly on the annual A.S. Orientation, Networking and Empowerment (O.N.E.) Leadership retreat, how to work and establish boundaries with A.S. staff and figuring out A.S. travel, among other things.
“She did a lot of great work last year, and she also did a lot of really great work around mental health, and that’s one of the campaign points that I ran on. So I’m really excited to see how she continues that through her role as president. I think she’ll be very successful,” Broadway said.
A version of this article appeared on p. 7 of the May 22, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
