The Daily Nexus endorses third-year political science and philosophy double major Daniyal “Dan” Siddiqui as the next Associated Students President.

The Nexus believes Siddiqui’s commitment to advocate for students, ambitions to address housing and basic needs and extensive experience in Associated Students qualify him to best serve the student body next year. Sherine John / Daily Nexus

The Associated Students (A.S.) President represents the entire undergraduate student body, can enact executive orders, sits on university and A.S. committees, sets the strategic vision of the Association for the academic year and appoints chairs of A.S. entities and Boards, Committees and Units (BCUs).

The Nexus believes Siddiqui’s commitment to advocating for students, ambitions to address housing and basic needs and extensive experience in A.S. qualify him to best serve the student body next year. 

Siddiqui is running on a platform of supporting BCUs, improving housing and basic needs and increasing financial transparency and efficiency within A.S. He said his number one priority if he is elected is to advocate for the student body.

“I’ve kind of always been someone who’s vocal about my opinions. I’ve never hid away from controversy. I’ve always been very vocal and upright in what I stand for and what I believe [in],” Siddiqui said.

Siddiqui’s opponent, third-year global studies, communication and Spanish triple major Le Anh Metzger is a credible candidate with comparable experience within A.S. Metzger is also critical of the way A.S. has been run, based on her own experience. 

“I’ve seen both the potential and the lack of follow through, and so this has really inspired me over the past year to think about what I would do if I were president, and what projects I could pursue, and how I could actually make a lasting change at [UC Santa Barbara],” Metzger said.

Metzger is running as a write-in candidate after missing the A.S. declaration of candidacy deadline. According to Metzger, this is because she was under the impression that her friend would be running, and she intended to support their campaign. Upon realizing her friend was not running for president, Metzger decided to run as a write-in candidate.

She is running on a platform of improving basic needs, housing, mental health resources, public health and safety, BCU and Registered Campus Organization communications, student outreach and supporting Isla Vista bands. The Nexus commends Metzger for ensuring her platform points are grounded in a wide range of issues but believes Siddiqui’s platform, while some items are unrealistically ambitious, could better meet long-felt needs of the student body.

The Nexus believes Siddiqui’s vision for the presidency is greater than how recent presidential terms have played out. He critiqued how previous presidents did not challenge the administration as part of their role, as they often serve as the sole undergraduate voice on university committees. As the undergraduate representative on the 2024 UCSB chancellor search committee, he has experience in such spaces. 

“I think a large reason why a lot of presidents have kind of not pushed back on those demands is because I think you get comfortable being a person in a position of power when you’re able to be in those top committees with administration. You feel like you’re a part of them. You feel like you don’t really want to rock the boat too much,” Siddiqui said. 

Siddiqui previously worked as a Pearman Fellow, then internal head of staff in the Office of the External Vice President for State Affairs, which, through his work with students, made him believe that A.S. is “overly bureaucratic” and “unnecessarily complex.” He says there is a lack of adequate training and advisors in the Association, and wants to promptly staff his office if he is elected.

As the current first president pro-tempore of the Senate, Siddiqui is intimately familiar with the inner workings of the legislative body of the Association. If nominated to be president, he says he wants to attend every senate meeting and give a president’s report, which is a regular responsibility of the president that the Nexus notes has not been carried out in recent presidential terms — which Siddiqui takes issue with. He believes leveraging the power of the president and working with the Senate can allow them to effectively advocate undergraduate student needs to the administration.

“I think this year, there’s just no communication between the Senate and the presidency and the executive office, and honestly all the executives as a whole, besides really the [External Vice President for Local Affairs],” Siddiqui said.

He also said senate meetings are unproductive forums to discuss issues because people do not try to convince the person they are talking to, but to convince an audience. He added that it can get theatrical and people use the platform to make political points that make themselves “look good.”

“It can be entertaining for someone who doesn’t have to sit there and be in that room and watch it. But frankly, I think what the president should be doing is they should be setting up task forces,” Siddiqui said. 

To create a more productive format for discussions, he wants to establish presidential task forces, citing the Jewish-Muslim alliance committee from this academic year, and have different groups discuss issues that matter to them but also the issues that “unite them,” like housing availability or basic needs. 

He also wants to work with BCU chairs to make them more service-oriented to students, beyond hosting events. One of his major critiques of A.S. is a lack of communication from the executive and legislative branches with BCUs, and he wants to appoint intermediaries in his office to work with every BCU. 

“I think the biggest issue is that we’re completely invisible to students. I think a large reason why that happens is because of the way our association is kind of set up,” Siddiqui said. “We always expect people to come to us and make demands of us, rather than us just going to them and being transparent and actually telling them what we’re doing.”

Metzger, who is currently co-chair of the A.S. Commission on Student Well-Being, wants to utilize her BCU background to encourage elected officials to not overstep their power. She is very critical of the hiring freeze across A.S. enacted by the Senate, and says that elected officials need to communicate with BCUs. The Nexus agrees with her efforts to advocate for BCUs, but thinks her promise to attend a meeting with each BCU every quarter could overstretch her limits, alongside her other presidential responsibilities, if elected. 

Siddiqui has a clear financial vision for the next year, which is one of the president’s largest responsibilities. He said he wants to create an internal financing system that would make it easier for campus organizations to get funding and to digitize A.S. accounts. He also wants to create more academic and professional resources for students, like Grammarly memberships, and carry on the current LinkedIn Learning project. 

Metzger said she would defer to people in her office with more knowledge regarding the A.S. budget. Given that many candidates this year pointed to the use of sitting A.S. rollover funds, the Nexus would like to see more robust ideas from Metzger on financial matters.

Due to his time in the EVPSA office, Siddiqui shows clear institutional knowledge regarding how the administration organizes and what they are planning for, including the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) in 2026. The LRDP is a comprehensive 10-year plan that guides the physical development of the campus.

The Nexus believes Siddiqui would be a president who could empathize with underserved groups on campus, as the previous co-chair for the A.S. Commission on Disability Equity (C.O.D.E.) and from understanding the issues marginalized students face from his lived experience as a Muslim American child of immigrants. He says these experiences allow him to reflect on the importance of resources like prayer rooms and reflection groups.

“I really do believe the marginalization of all communities and the struggles that all communities face are intertwined when it comes to microaggressions, when it comes to understanding. I even think within our own communities [themselves], within communities of color, is where we actually find the most pushback and the most strife, maybe even sometimes more in our own communities than we do outside [in] other communities,” Siddiqui said.

The Nexus also believes Metzger could lead with compassion, and her ideas to support mental health on campus support this value. She wants to reduce wait times for counseling and implement mental health first aid training to more people, including residential assistants and Greek life organizations.

Siddiqui acknowledges that he cannot speak for every marginalized group on campus either. In turn, he wants to appoint people to his office from a range of communities.

“I want students from all these other communities who need a voice, who need to be represented, to be in my office and be in my cabinet. To really sit on these committees and advocate for students,” Siddiqui said.

He pointed out that the biggest issue in regards to campus climate is a lack of communication across campus. 

“There’s a lack of communication on multiple fronts. There’s a lack of communication with administration and students, and there’s a lack of communication with students amongst each other,” he said. 

Last academic year, while the campus was mired in divisions and hostility regarding international conflicts such as Israel’s ongoing siege of the Gaza strip after the October 2023 attack by militant group Hamas, public campus activism surrounding the issue has significantly decreased this year. As the Trump administration is now targeting international students by revoking their student visas and has made efforts to deport international students due to their involvement in pro-Palestine activism, there is a tangible fear among university students when it comes to speaking out on positions that oppose the administration. 

The Nexus believes that next year’s president should be able to stand strong in the face of adversity, as the University of California (UC) is a public institution that could be the target of more deliberate funding cuts and systematic changes. Just in the past month, the UC removed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) statements from its hiring process and has put a pause on hiring new staff. The next president should be prepared to lead in what may be a more tenuous time for the UC — the Nexus believes Siddiqui understands the gravity of the position he is running for.

“Seeing where our campus and where the world is … I think our campus really needs [a leader] to be talking to administration and to be representing us in the next year. I feel like that’s really what inspired me and propelled me to run through this role,” Siddiqui said. 

The Nexus is concerned about Siddiqui’s ability to extend himself extensively in the community, and to appoint enough office staff members that he could delegate such important work of communicating with BCUs to. 

“I think the main thing that will really make it easy for me to transition in this role is the administrative experience I have, leading the Senate and our board standing committees and also leading my personal office staff,” Siddiqui said.

The Nexus worries that Siddiqui’s history of legislation to divest from companies with ties to Israel’s military in the Senate and positioning at on-campus pro-Palestine protests could alienate portions of the student body, considering the extreme political discourse in senate meetings over the last two years. The Nexus hopes that Siddiqui focuses his energy on creating tangible change on campus, rather than engaging in politically polarizing activity that negatively affects the campus climate, as demonstrated by past presidents.

Siddiqui says that he does not see his history of activism as a detractor to his ability to lead, as he sees the presidency as representing all students and says he would listen to the needs of students who hold different views from his. 

“I think the number one thing that we need next year, for advocating for students who are fighting back against the attacks on higher education, [is] a unified association,” Siddiqui said. “I’ve been in all of these different roles and organizations and communities on campus that will really need to connect to be a unified front, and I think I can bring all those communities together.”

While both candidates are qualified to run for the position, the Nexus feels Siddiqui is the candidate who could steer not only the Association, but the capacity of UCSB, to serve undergraduates further.

A version of this article appeared on p. 8 of  the Apr. 24, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.