Vishwaa Sofat and Julian Giordano: Leaders of the 2019-2020 Student Union

When senior and Student Union (SU) President Vishwaa Sofat began his search for a running mate, he was set on finding someone who embodied the characteristics that both he and former SU President William Wang (‘19) valued most deeply. For him, junior and now SU Vice President Julian Giordano was the clear candidate. “I was looking for someone who not only was passionate about doing the work, but was also capable of doing the work. Passion only goes so far, but having the will to learn things, having learned things already, having shown that the Student Union was and will continue to be a priority—I found those things in Julian,” Sofat said.

With help from their Executive Council—seniors Chief of Staff Lena Farley and Student Leadership Team (SLT) Representative Nina Jennings, and sophomores Chief Auditing Officer Aaron Wang, Deputy Chief of Staff Neve Diaz-Carr, and Deputy Chief of Staff Theo Kubovy-Weiss—Sofat and Giordano plan to continue creating change at Stuyvesant in hopes of bettering the student body.

Sofat and Giordano were elected in the first contested SU election in two years, running against the Tam-Kuke and Kahan-Yan tickets. Sofat and Giordano cited their prior experiences as the biggest factor in their win, with Sofat’s previous caucus leadership and SU vice presidency and Giordano’s work as a delegate of External Affairs. “Because we had the experience and because we had worked with the administration, we knew how to draft a fully efficient platform. We knew everything in depth, which was a major advantage that influenced all the other ways we interacted on the campaign,” Giordano said.

The other advantage over their competition, the pair claimed, was their commitment to improving their school community. “Our involvement within Stuyvesant was also a key factor. It wasn’t just our experience within the SU, but it was also our desire to help our school. We had done things; we had taken initiatives that weren’t in our profile. Julian had been at SLT meetings without him needing to be at meetings. It’s our passion. It’s what we love to do. That put us apart from our opponents,” Sofat said.

Sofat and Giordano see their contested election as a sign of great student interest in the SU. “Running contested and the recent increase in high-quality applications point to one thing: the SU has been successful in getting students involved and making sure they understand the role of the SU,” Sofat said. “More and more students are seeing that their involvement is key and want a chance to become involved, and we welcome their involvement.”

They also note that running contested strengthened their platform and helped them fine-tune their ideas about initiatives they hope to accomplish this upcoming year. “Contested elections [don’t] just make things fair, but they actually help us improve the way we run the Student Union,” Giordano said. “We learn a tremendous amount from the people who run against us and the ideas they propose. It’s a learning experience for us to go up against someone, and it forces us to really think critically about what our policies are and what we want to do.”

After going through election season together, Sofat and Giordano have developed a unique dynamic with one another. “If you’ve ever been around me and Vishwaa, you’ve noticed that a lot of what we do is just argue,” Giordano said.

The combative nature of Sofat and Giordano’s relationship, however, allows them to push one another to refine their ideas and policies. “If we are arguing, we are able to capture the student perspective. If it is just one person making the decision, or if we are in constant agreement, then we are doing something wrong somewhere because it’s not supposed to be easy. We are not making easy decisions,” Sofat said.

Giordano said, “We are both equally dedicated and fully committed to the Student Union, but we oftentimes have different perspectives. We have different experiences, and that allows us to constantly challenge each other with different ideas.”

The Sofat-Giordano administration has already initiated multiple projects listed on their platform, albeit many are in their initial phases. One of their largest initiatives is increasing school spirit in an effort to create a more supportive environment within the Stuyvesant community. “We’ve been working to open the school store for longer periods of time, and the store would become the central location to sell items like apparel, [...] physical education uniforms, goggles for swim gym, aprons for lab, drafting kits, notebooks, [and] school supplies,” Sofat said. “We will be able to create more of a lively scene through the school store, which is currently not being utilized [to] its greatest capacity.” Sofat and Giordano also hope to host student events such as trivia and movie nights to increase school spirit as well.

Sofat and Giordano want to improve their school environment in other ways as well. The pair will participate in this year’s SLT meetings as student representatives alongside Jennings, and they plan to present a proposal regarding sanitary issues in the cafeteria. “We know that the cafeteria has been messier and messier,” Sofat said. “Our SLT team is working on finding a way to make sure the school is neater and students use the trash cans more effectively.” This proposal is part of a larger effort to begin a conversation about allowing students to bring outside food and beverages into the school.

They also plan to reopen the conversation about PSAL frees at SLT meetings. “Principal [Eric] Contreras has pledged to have a subcommittee within the SLT to further the conversation about PSAL frees. We hope that the administration will continue to support us on this proposal because it allows us to give our athletes an opportunity they deserve and other schools provide,” Sofat said.

Additionally, the pair is introducing a speaker series that will combine the efforts of caucuses and the External Affairs department to bring guest lecturers to Stuyvesant. “In the past, the way lectures have worked is that they’ve been disjointed,” Giordano said. “If we unite them under one program, this Student Union lecture series, [...] we can use our combined forces to contact more speakers and get them here [and] get better advertising for all of them so we have more students attend.”

So far, the SU has reached out to assistant principals for lecturer suggestions and to students for topics they’re interested in. Sofat and Giordano hope that this series will complement the in-school curriculum and provide a unique learning experience for students. “We can really have discussions without thinking about grades and really change the way we see education at Stuyvesant,” Sofat said.

Sofat and Giordano also hope to work with caucuses on other projects in addition to the integrated lecture series. “We also want to work with the Senior Caucus and our Alumni Association to create a Stuy[vesant]-specific Linkedin [that] allows students to reach out to alumni [who] are in an area of their interest, [to get] internships or advice and also to get college help,” Sofat said.

The SU continues to search for other ways to improve the lives of the student body, some of which are more technological. StuyActivities, which was introduced last year, and the SU website are both being updated for better user experiences. Furthermore, the SU plans to develop a Chrome extension personalized for Stuyvesant students and modeled after Momentum, a personal dashboard that helps and inspires users to focus. “The idea is to have a Chrome extension that students can have on their computers that tells them everything they need to know,” Giordano said. This extension would provide easy access to important links, such as Talos and StuyActivities, and information such as the type of school day and the schedule.

While working on these larger initiatives, the pair also aims to improve students’ lives on a smaller scale. For example, Sofat and Giordano finalized the details for a printing station on the seventh floor, which will be available for students once equipment is set up. “We currently only have one printing station on the second floor that has three computers and one printer. It gets really clogged up. It’s hard for students to print, and so we want to change that,” Giordano said. “We’re really excited about [it], and we think it’s a no-brainer project that’s going to have a big impact on the student body.” Additionally, the pair released a question and answer document addressing popular Talos questions to help students navigate program changes and alleviate the volume of e-mails the Program Office receives.

Beyond the walls of Stuyvesant, Sofat and Giordano help students around the city develop their own student governments through their roles as Youth Partner Facilitators for the Manhattan Borough Advisory Council. “As a Youth Partner Facilitator, [...] you are a student who is applied and who is willing to put in a bit of extra work to help develop meetings, but you aren’t taking charge of the room and telling students how to run their student governments,” Giordano said. “You are using your skills as a leader to facilitate conversations and bring everyone’s voice out, not just yours.”

These various projects and ideas, both in and out of Stuyvesant, showcase a shift in the SU as it finds a different balance between past and new initiatives. “They’re being successful at not just continuing upon the legacies of past administrations, but also creating their own legacies and creating new projects that [...] future administrations can continue,” Kubovy-Weiss said.

These projects also demonstrate the dedication and effort of the SU so early on in the school year. “This is by far the most productive [way] I’ve seen the SU work. Vishwaa and Julian are both really committed to making goals a reality within a set time frame and encourage everyone to treat our projects and goals with the same level of urgency,” Jennings said in an e-mail interview. “The dynamic of SU has definitely shifted to be more proactive and effective at all times.”

For Diaz-Carr, the SU’s efficiency is due to its supportive environment. “This environment is not a hostile, boss-worker one, but instead a peer one, where we can all build off of each other’s ideas, allow for each to grow, learn from our mistakes, and create effective change together,” she said in an e-mail interview.

While the Executive Council is confident in the productivity of the SU under its current leadership, the student body is more skeptical. “People have this concept of the SU, whether it’s corrupt or annoying or whatever it is, but Julian and Vishwaa have devoted an enormous amount of time and energy and resources,” Kubovy-Weiss said. “They want to make progress. They want to change [the] SU. They want to move [the] SU.”

Farley agreed with this sentiment. “What I keep saying about the SU this year is I want to make what we do widespread. We do a lot of things that students don’t necessarily see, so when people talk about the SU, it’s usually dismissive,” she said in an e-mail interview. “There’s always more students can know about what we do, and I think they should see everything we do.”

In order to ensure that the student body is aware of their progress, the SU is continuing to increase transparency between the school community and themselves. “We’ve set up surveys and polls, and we’ve tried to send out e-mails about notifications and applications as early as we can,” Wang said. “We’ve also not only worked on transparency outside of the Student Union, but also [on] transparency within. If every member of the Student Union is aware of their responsibilities faster, the Student Union as a whole is more efficient.”

Sofat has been working toward creating a more efficient and coherent SU throughout his three years in student government, and he is thankful for the experiences he has had during his high school career. “I’ve had a really good run within the Student Union. I’ve been able to bring change within the Stuyvesant community and impact my peers’ lives directly. I’ve always wanted to help people, and the Student Union gave me that opportunity for the last three years,” Sofat said.

While Sofat will be serving his final term in the SU this year, Giordano is looking forward to contributing to the SU as it continues to improve Stuyvesant. “Since I’ve come to Stuyvesant, I’ve been interested in student government, and I’ve been impressed by the state of the Student Union and the fact that the Student Union is able to accomplish so much,” he said. “The Student Union does great stuff, and it’s amazing to be a part of a really progressive group of students who are making their voices heard and actually creating real change within our school.”