Tyagi-Lachman ticket hopes to unify USC

Monish Tyagi and Logan Lachman, who are running for Undergraduate Student Government’s president and vice-president, are one of the more experienced tickets on this year’s ballot.

Experienced · Monish Tyagi (left) and Logan Lachman want to extend the hours of the restaurants in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. - Jennifer Schultz | Daily Trojan

Both candidates have been involved with USG since their first semester as freshmen. Tyagi, a junior majoring in cinema-television production, is currently the director of USG’s Campus Affairs committee. Lachman, a sophomore majoring in communication, is a current USG Greek senator.

Tyagi and Lachman believe their experience in groups ranging from Greek Life to Troy Camp to club sports allows them to connect more with fellow students and become more effective leaders in USG.

“USG is by far my biggest passion here at USC,” Tyagi said. “From day one, I saw the power that USG had to work with students. This place has really become my home and what I really love about USG is that it’s such a tangible way to give back.”

The two candidates constructed a campaign strategy and platform that reflect their commitment to fellow students as well as their desire to encourage a more unified and involved student body.

Part of their plan to foster an increasingly active student life on campus includes working with Student Affairs to extend the hours of the Ronald Tutor Campus Center and to play music in the courtyard.

“The Ronald Tutor Campus Center has been such an amazing addition to campus,” Tyagi said. “We want to keep that going and build upon it to really make it a driving force behind student life on campus.”

In addition to working with Student Affairs, Tyagi and Lachman hope to unify the student body by coordinating with other campus spirit organizations to help create a more centralized student section for basketball games and events prior to the games.

“This school is amazing and has so much to offer,” Lachman said. “Some people might not know how to get involved but everyone is able to, and I really hope that’s the one thing we can do if we are elected, to make everyone in this school feel unified and a part of something.”

Tyagi and Lachman plan to get students more involved by providing input on various programs, such as concerts, guest speakers and Visions & Voices events. They hope to increase the amount of communication among various students and organizations as well.

“For this to happen we want to hold more types of events that will connect students, student organizations and USG,” Lachman said. “We want to connect administrators to students, but also students to students because they don’t necessarily get to communicate the way they should, so we want to create a central hub to put everyone together the way they should be.”

Their platform also includes goals like increasing opportunities for students to find on-campus jobs, creating an alumni mentorship program, adding a fall break, improving the tram system and focusing more effort on sustainability initiatives for both on- and off-campus housing.

Since beginning their campaign Monday, Tyagi and Lachman have made a point of personally interacting with students campus.

They have also tried to lighten the mood of election season with their hot pink campaign shirts, posters featuring caricatures of themselves and campaign videos that play off of the popular Dos Equis advertisements starring “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”

“We just want to get students excited because this election could get pretty intense and pretty serious, as it should be, but at the same time there is a lot of fun surrounding it,” Tyagi said. “It’s been really great to see USC students so excited about the election.”

For more coverage on the 2011 USG elections, click here.