Daniel, Sood Pledge to ‘Amplify Student Voices’

Tsion A. Daniel ’27 and Sahil Sood ’27 — the only ticket where both candidates currently hold Harvard Undergraduate Association officer positions — plan to “amplify student voices” as they vie to be the next HUA co-presidents.

Daniel is studying Economics with a Computer Science secondary and a citation in Amharic. The daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, Daniel — a former Crimson News comper — said she brings her background into not only her academic pursuits but also her approach to extracurricular leadership.

“Growing up as a daughter of Ethiopian Eritrean immigrants, I’ve really learned to appreciate diversity of opinions and other people’s experiences, and I found that being involved in student government and HUA was a really cool way to do that,” said Daniel, the current HUA Social Life Team Officer.

Sood, a Crimson Business associate and current HUA co-Treasurer, is pursuing a double concentration in Chemical and Physical Biology and Government and a concurrent master’s degree in Chemistry on the pre-med track. Sood said he has been involved in student government since middle school.

“I have always liked the idea of having the opportunity to use the resources the school and the administration has to leverage them for student organizations and create these small pockets of interest, these small enclaves within campuses and schools that allow people to explore their interests more in depth,” said Sood. “It’s that idea of wanting to give back that has always made me want to be part of student government.”

Daniel and Sood are running on the campaign of “Your Voice, Your Harvard,” emphasizing their desire to platform student voices through advocacy and participate in difficult conversations to get student viewpoints heard by administrators.

The pair, if elected, said they hope to put more “power in the students’ hands” — planning to take a “laissez-faire approach” to club funding, advocate for changes within Harvard Undergraduate Dining Services, increase student representation and direct conversations with administration, and reduce MBTA fares for Harvard students.

“We’re both pretty resounding in the belief that the HUA’s role broadly needs to be a conduit for student voices. That’s why we chose to center our campaign around the idea of ‘Your Voice, Your Harvard,’” Sood said. “The goal of the HUA is to take the sentiments that the student body has and try to relay those over to the appropriate points of contact.”

Daniel and Sood also pointed to substantive prior action behind each of their promises.

“Every single point that we went through, which is basically our entire platform, has been discussed with some faculty member or some member of administration to evaluate feasibility and discussed with a number of students to evaluate whether or not this is something that students would want to see — and received positive feedback on both ends,” Sood said.

“Our goal isn’t to get into office and then just like, not do anything,” he added. “We want to make sure that the promises that we make are what we can deliver on.”

—Staff writer Nina A. Ejindu can be reached at nina.ejindu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nina_ejindu.