For most students at UTD, Student Government is a distant and seemingly irrelevant notion. It is a body of roughly 100 senators and executives that meets weekly, passes resolutions, allocates funding and, for the vast majority of the 30,000 students on campus, operates behind the scenes.
But every spring, the distance is closed during one election which determines next year’s SG leadership. This year, students will choose between two tickets with two fundamentally different visions of what SG should be and how it should serve students.
On one side sits “New Wave UTD,” the ticket of current SG vice president David Baker, running for president, and Webmaster Farhan Iqbal, running for vice president. New Wave UTD focuses on the duo’s combined six years of senate experience and their ambitious plan to continue ongoing SG initiatives. On the other side sits “Ho/Pe,” the ticket of current SG senator Thaden Ho, running for president, and Pari Sarangdevot, running for vice president. Ho/Pe advertises itself as an outsider alternative ready to shake up an insular status quo.
The executive debate, moderated by The Retrograde, between both tickets will be held Wednesday, April 1 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the second floor of Comets LANding. Voting starts Monday, April 6 and closes April 8.
New Wave UTD
Click here to learn about the New Wave UTD ticket!
Baker, a neuroscience junior, and Iqbal, a computer science senior graduating fall 2026, have each been in SG for the past three years. Between them, they have chaired various committees, mentored dozens of senators, navigated amendments to SG’s constitution, survived campus political crises and built relationships with students, administrators and local city officials alike.
Baker said New Wave’s 22-point platform — organized under four areas focused on supporting student organizations, protecting student rights, demanding accountability from administrators and improving student wellness — reflected the experience and depth of knowledge his ticket was bringing to the table.
“We’ve been here for three years, we have a lot of strategies for how to get these things done,” Baker said. “They aren’t just vague promises.”
Baker said that experience is where his ticket diverges the most from Ho/Pe. He said that New Wave isn’t just making promises, but saying what the duo know they can actually accomplish.
“When track and field gets canceled, when the next student organization gets unjustly terminated, I worry that someone who hasn’t held previous SG leadership roles won’t know the best way to respond to protect students,” Baker said.
Iqbal was far blunter, claiming that Ho has not contributed toward any of the issues the Ho/Pe ticket publicly supports despite being a senator these past few years.
“They’ve been vastly silent on these issues,” Iqbal said. “It’s one thing to say you care about all these things on your platform. It’s another to look at our track record and let our work speak for itself.”
Ho/Pe
Click here to learn about the Ho/Pe ticket!
Ho, a healthcare studies sophomore, and Sarangdevot, a psychology junior with no previous experience in SG, are running on a dramatically different premise. Ho/Pe argues that SG is broken — not because of bad policies, but because it has stopped fighting for students.
“The most important thing to campus is us, the students,” Ho said. “UTD has a horrendous reputation for on-campus life, and I think part of that has to do with leading a student organization, with freedom.”
While the New Wave platform has 22 points split into four categories, the Ho/Pe platform is narrowly focused on four core points. Ho said New Wave’s numerous positions completely misses the need for brevity in a clear message to students.
“If you’re focused on 80 different things, you’re focused on nothing,” Ho said.
Ho/Pe prioritizes free speech and student organizational capacity, two issues that have become increasingly charged on a campus that has seen protesters arrested, Spirit Rocks removed and, most recently, an activist student organization’s campus suspension. Within hours of Students for Justice in Palestine’s suspension, Ho had issued a public statement denouncing the action.
“This is a horrendous violation of our rights as students and Americans,” Ho wrote. “I denounce these actions. As student president, I will speak out on behalf of those who have been silenced by this administration.”
Sarangdevot, who came to the election from the world of art clubs and student business associations, framed her lack of institutional experience as an asset rather than a liability.
“I can empathize with the average student and work to make [SG] a place where the average student is heard,” Sarangdevot said. “If they feel like they aren’t being represented, then there are things and actionable ways that they can make themselves heard.”
Responses to a campus in crisis
Both tickets agree that UTD students face an administration that has grown increasingly hostile toward dissent. Where they differ is how they respond to it.
For Baker and Iqbal, the answer rests in institutional knowledge, relationship-building and strategic coordination between student groups. Baker pointed to the Budget Breakdown Committee, which he launched and led to give students major insight into university finances, and his work helping organize a mayoral debate last fall and a mayoral town hall this spring. He said the success of those initiatives have created an unprecedented line of communication between the Richardson mayor and SG.
Ho, on the other hand, said that this kind of institutional approach is a constraint on SG.
“I’ve seen the past two presidencies and vice presidencies go on, and it feels like those administrations, they’ll represent students where it matters, but whenever admin brings down the hammer, they go, ‘It’s not within our power,’ and we move on,” Ho said. “When it is within our power to draft a resolution, we pass it and then move on. I don’t think that is acceptable.”
Ho said he felt like anytime SG accomplished something or made requests from administration through resolutions, university leadership ultimately ignored it.
Baker said at least when it comes to his own record, his approach to campus has seen immense success. Two recent examples of this stand out to him: the reinstatement of UTD’s track and field programs and efforts to restore artist alleys to campus. Because of a change in the Student Organization Center’s interpretation of university policy, students have been unable to organize artist alleys this academic year.
“Within about a week or two of us reaching out, we’ve gotten almost everything overturned,” Baker said. “During this entire process, I’ve not heard from the opposition once about this. They’re running on this initiative and have not put any amount of effort or outreach into wanting to continue this event.”
Bringing back artist alleys is one of Ho/Pe’s four key promises. Ho said he believes the university will implement a new vetting system for all artwork, and that even if artist alleys come back, he doubts they will give students the artistic freedom he said they deserve.
The largest point of contention between the two tickets is the Green Fund, a $5 fee added to students’ tuition payments as of this academic year. Its creation was led by SG and went into effect after gaining UT System and Texas state approval. The fund is expected to generate tens of thousands of dollars to fund sustainability efforts on campus. Ho wants it gone.
“The fact [SG] actually had to spend money on an event [for the fund] to spread awareness about the Green Fund should tell you how little engagement it has received,” Ho said.
Ho said a new student referendum should be held, since he believes the original vote — which received roughly 1,000 total votes out of nearly 30,000 students — does not constitute enough consent for the university to apply what he sees as yet another fee onto students. UTD is one of the most expensive public schools in Texas, a title it has held for over a decade now.
Baker, whose administration as vice president oversaw the fund’s implementation, defended its existence. He said the Green Fee was implemented with complete transparency and that having the fund helps improve campus through a fee small enough for most students not to feel. Baker also said Ho did not serve on the committee that oversaw the fund, nor did he make his complaints clear during his two years in the senate.
“Not once has he ever asked to serve on this committee or put any interest in actually working on the Green Fund,” Baker said. “This is the first time I am hearing him publicly say anything about it.”
Election Day
The election will be held next week and the duo behind the winning ticket will take office this May. Whoever wins will inherit a campus reeling from administrative crackdowns, a failing electrical grid and students skeptical of the governance structures on campus. For the students who vote, the choice will be stark: experience or outsiders; institutional reform or rupture; 22 points or four.
Baker framed the choice as one of credibility.
“If you want candidates that have a very proven track record of getting things done, who have spent numerous years in [SG] working on projects to improve student life, to help student organizations, to protect students’ freedom of speech — New Wave UTD has significantly more credibility,” Baker said.
Ho framed the choice as one of courage.
“If you’re okay with the status quo, I think David Baker will do a great job managing that,” Ho said. “He’s not an incompetent person. But if you want real change, we’re your two people.”
The Retrograde has provided a link to an archived version of Ho/Pe’s platform website and a PDF of the full New Wave UTD platform below.