Year: Sophomore
Major: Political science
Hometown: Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Student organizations/activities: GW Catholics, GW College Democrats, GW Moot Court
Prior SGA experience: CCAS undergraduate senator, senate pro tempore, legislative assistant for Special Committee on Dining
Favorite D.C. restaurant: Sixty Vines
Go-to GW study spot: Gelman Library fifth floor between the book cases
Who is your role model: My sister
Ideal walk-out song: “The Giver” by Chappell Roan
GW Deli order: Bacon, egg and cheese on an everything bagel

Liz Stoddard is tired of the Student Government Association being a “boys’ club.”

Stoddard said when she first joined the SGA as a legislative assistant for the Special Committee on Dining as a first-year, she saw “a lot of inequity” in the lack of women and people of color represented in the body and said she wanted to change that by running as a senator. She said because of the lack of female leaders in the SGA, issues that are important to her and other women — like expanding Title IX resources — have been pushed to the sidelines by SGA senators, which motivated her to seek higher office and focus on these issues in her vice presidential campaign.

“I want to do it not to just fill some data requirements but because I think certain issues are being neglected on campus especially in the Title IX arena,” Stoddard said. “And on actually making the SGA a good place where people want to collaborate and go to instead of this sort of seedy underbelly that had no diversity in it.”

Stoddard said she wanted to run for vice president because she knows students often have a negative perception of the SGA and its “politicking,” but she wants to show students she is focused on getting bills passed that bring positive results to students and avoiding “needless drama.”

She said if elected as vice president, she will work on expanding dining options on GWorld, making the SGA’s financial decisions for funding student organizations more transparent and streamlining FixIt requests to ensure facilities workers don’t arrive at students’ rooms unannounced, which she said has posed a “huge invasion of privacy” for students. Stoddard said she is “fully equipped” to continue collaborating with University officials as vice president because of her experience as senate pro tempore this year, where she worked with administrators on Title IX issues and sat in on University strategic planning meetings.

“I’ve earned my stripes as someone who’s trying to help students and get it done and put their head down because at the end of the day, I want to run because I want to do something,” Stoddard said. “I want to make some changes. I want to get some reform, and I want it done fast.”

Stoddard said serving as pro tempore of the senate was like being the “regional manager” of the SGA. She said through this role she has passed legislation, like the the Survivors Bill of Rights — which consolidates Title IX resources for sexual assault survivors into one document — and pitched initiatives she cares about, like relaunching the Women’s Caucus last fall.

“I think I have gained that knowledge, that political, that social and that technical ability to lead this without a training period at all,” Stoddard said.

She said if elected as vice president she hopes to continue to prioritize issues affecting women by working with the University to provide discounts for graduate students for childcare services in collaboration with Bright Horizons, a local early education center. She said she also wants to increase awareness of Title IX resources among students through a “Know Your Rights” campaign, which would require collaboration with the Title IX office to advertise the process of reporting incidents and amplifying resources more clearly and frequently to the student body.

In her platform, Stoddard detailed her intentions to create a designated space for women in the Lerner Health and Wellness Center for one hour per week so women can have a “private and respectful” environment to work out in, giving women who wear hijabs the option to remove them while working out.

“I think it definitely colors how I run my race, what it is like to be a woman in this space that’s very at times antagonistic to women trying to lead,” Stoddard said.

Stoddard said she wants to increase the SGA’s accountability to the student body by implementing an ethics committee composed of student representatives from “diverse backgrounds,” who will work to review internal policies and conduct and publish reports on SGA practices. Her platform outlines other proposed SGA reforms, including a limit to the use of SGA’s executive sessions, which have surged this term.

“It’s about getting results for students, and that’s the most important thing that we can do,” Stoddard said. “Not the pomp, not the circumstance not the ego stroking, but getting it done. And that’s my goal. I don’t need to be flashy.”

Stoddard said her greatest strength as a candidate is her “directness” about what she is advocating for — increased transparency and positive results for the student body.

“I’ve led debates on senate bills, I’ve approved so many vacancies, I’ve made the senate more diverse and more female through our vacancy process,” Stoddard said. “And I think my confidence comes from the fact that I have done good work.”