One candidate stands out from the crowd in the four-way race for Student Government Association president: Lauren K. Harris.

We believe this week, students should vote for Harris, an outsider to the SGA but a leader of GW’s community. Her perspective and platform may be just what the body needs to better represent students and go in a bold, new direction.

The succinct platform Harris shared with the editorial board addresses six objectives that range from the SGA to GW as a whole. Harris said she’d organize town halls and forums to demystify student government. And she said she’d take advantage of social media — and the youthful spirit of Generation Z — to better advertise what the SGA’s up to.

Regarding GW, Harris said she would bridge the gap between Foggy Bottom and D.C. through activities and events both on and off campus; create task forces focused on enhancing students’ access to Title IX resources; provide students with drink covers and panic buzzers; reduce GW’s environmental impact by working with GW Dining to eliminate the distribution of single-use plastics; and strengthen inclusivity on campus through organizations like the Multicultural Student Services Center.

Harris wasn’t the only candidate whose plans touched on these issues. In fact, her platform could have more thoroughly discussed students’ demands for affordable Plan B and medication abortion on campus — and how she’d use the SGA to turn those demands into action.

But what struck us most in our discussion was Harris’ understanding of GW’s community. She felt less like someone courting a few influential student organizations than a student wanting to bring all of her peers together. And while her ideas to arrange tours of different D.C. neighborhoods or hold a go-go music festival require further fleshing out, they demonstrate Harris’ interest in using the SGA to build connections on campus and beyond it.

Harris also spoke about the resentment students can feel toward the SGA. While student organizations may feel cheated out of funding, other students might have no idea how the governing body works, or who’s even in charge. Harris said she wanted the SGA to be more accessible to students, and we agree.

The editorial board also met with the three other candidates running for president: Nicky Beruashvili, the SGA’s executive secretary for internal relations, and SGA Senators Ethan Fitzgerald and Dan Saleem.

As a member of SGA President Arielle Geismar’s cabinet, Beruashvili’s enthusiasm for the SGA was evident throughout our interview. Yet among his plans to address community, environment, safety and health at GW, we found some of his points — like maintaining, if not expanding, a 60-member executive cabinet — to be concerning.

Fitzgerald put together an extensive plan that addressed seemingly every issue students face on campus: mental, physical and reproductive health, food quality in the dining halls, grade forgiveness, increasing laundry credits and much, much more. He told us why he’d included more than 40 individual initiatives in his platform and what he hoped to accomplish. But we hoped for more of an explanation as to how Fitzgerald would actually achieve these goals, not just talk about them.

Saleem’s “DAN Plan” on dining, advocacy for students and new standards for the SGA caught our attention, and not just because of its catchy name. Saleem is right that the SGA needs reform, from trimming the size of the cabinet to more student outreach. But it doesn’t take an insider to know that — or to make it happen.

Harris is an outsider to the SGA, and that status comes with pros and cons of its own. While she has experience as the vice president and finance chair for GW Startup Avenue, Harris will likely have to spend the beginning of her term learning on the job. As she acknowledged in our interview, she might not have the most expertise of all the candidates running, but she thinks she can improve the SGA.

So do we.

The editorial board consists of Hatchet staff members and operates separately from the newsroom. This week’s staff editorial was written by Opinions Editor Ethan Benn based on discussions with Contributing Culture Editor Jenna Baer, Editorials Assistant Paige Baratta, Contributing Social Media Director Anaya Bhatt, Contributing Opinions Editor Riley Goodfellow and Social Media Director Ethan Valliath.