Editor’s note: The Barometer has yet to receive responses from Student Fee Committee Chair candidate Dylan Perfect or Presidential ticket Mercedez Allen and Shantal Andrea Velazquez.
Kayla Ramirez and Masha Mogylevsky are running for president and vice president in the 2025 student government election, with a focus on student workers’ rights, healthcare access and increased transparency.
Associate Students of Oregon State University 2025 elections are underway, with ballots due Feb. 28. Ramirez and Mogylevsky are up against three other running mates.
Presidential candidate Ramirez is a political science and psychology major, currently acting as a Basic Needs Center liaison on the Student Fee Committee. Vice presidential candidate Mogylevsky is a digital communication arts major, with experience working at the Hattie Redmond Women and Gender Center.
“My experience in community care as a student worker directly inspired me to run along with Masha,” Ramirez said in an email. “Hearing the struggles and frustrations from my peers who felt voiceless led me to want to take on a leadership role–because I know change is possible.”
Ramirez said they supported increasing student wages to liveable standards in the SFC and strives to carry this momentum into the ASOSU executive branch.
“So many students are struggling financially and this greatly affects their ability to focus on school, especially when they need to work more than one student job on campus in order to even survive and sustain themselves,” Mogylevsky said in the email.
Ramirez believes their and Mogylevsky’s experience in “labor activism” and “community care,” sets their candidacy apart. Both candidates have participated in organizing for the Undergraduate Student Workers Union and the Coalition of Graduate Employees, and have earned endorsements from both groups.
“We’ve seen the hurdles that the institution brings to community organizing and activism and the more we got frustrated with those the more we wanted to take a leadership role and try to change things for the better from inside the institution,” Mogylevsky said.
The duo aspires to increase transparency between ASOSU and the student body. They plan to achieve this by announcing meetings in advance, staying involved with campus groups, making themselves accessible through office hours and providing other reachable means of contact.
While being transparent with students, Ramirez and Mogylevsky also see the value of upholding a positive working relationship with the OSU administration.
“While it’s important to operate and collaborate in good faith, I want to emphasize that there is a difference between working with the administration and working for the administration. Our top priority is that we represent student voices first and foremost,” Mogylevsky said.
Ramirez and Mogylevsky hope to strengthen current healthcare initiatives at OSU like free STI testing and access to Naloxone, along with other programs like SafeRide and Collegiate Recovery.
At the end of their term, Mogylevsky said success “would look like a clear investment in the future of current and prospective students. For Kayla and I, it would be being able to provide the opportunity for students to continue to pursue higher education with less financial barriers, and/or creating an even safer and more inclusive campus environment.”