As the school year comes to a close, so does Malik Cantu’s second, and final, term as the student body president at CWU. Having won two back-to-back elections, Cantu has officially served the maximum amount of time an elected student can at CWU, and following this past election will soon be replaced by incoming ASCWU President Hondo Acosta-Vega (see page 3).

Cantu will graduate with a bachelors in theatre performance, and hopes to land a job at The University of Washington in the months to come. “I would love to work for their admissions team,” Cantu said. “A lot of my work with orientation and with student government, it blends together in some ways. So I’m hopefully going to do that while I start building my network in the theater and film community, and then slowly rely on that.” Cantu’s eventual goal is to get their masters after a few years of outside work.

Reflecting on the highlights of their time at CWU, Cantu said, “I met some really great people and made a lot of really good memories. A lot of the events and everything, while they’re challenging, it’s definitely a bonding experience, going through all of those challenges together.”

“It was really cool to be in meetings with administrators and advocating, and you’re doing all those different things. But it was really when we were all together, trying to figure out things just like one collective body and throwing all of our different perspectives and things around, that was definitely the highlight. [It] was working with everyone,” Cantu said.

But a presidency is not without its challenges, and Cantu credited the recent Services and Activities Committee’s (S&A) decisions, and the development of the Multicultural Centers (MCC)  as a couple of the largest. “The S&A [was] definitely a huge challenge. But there was also the MCC from last year, that conversation was a really challenging one, especially because at the beginning of my first term last year, the conversations were really promising as far as getting around and building and different things like that. And then once the university told us that we wouldn’t be able to pursue that as an option, I feel like that was where a lot of the other challenges started … It was navigating this decade-long conversation, thinking that we were so close to getting everything that we’ve been working for, and then having to compromise for it.”

Now, with their final term coming to an end, Cantu took the time to thank everyone who has supported them on their journey as ASCWU president for the past two years. “To everyone who supported me, thank you so much. ln the really challenging times, the voice of the students is what looms over all of our heads, we just really hope that we’re doing everything we can to make sure people are feeling like we’re doing our jobs and like we’re actually making a difference and doing good work,” Cantu said. “There were people out there supporting me, and having trust, even in times where I made mistakes or missteps, people still had my back. I’m just so incredibly grateful for that, because that’s one of the biggest things that got me through was knowing that there are people who see that we’re trying, and that I’m trying, and that I’m just doing my best.” 

As for the incoming ASCWU board, Cantu shared some words of wisdom about how they can manage the coming year(s). “Give yourselves grace,” Cantu said. “Moving forward, it’s probably still going to be really challenging. Every year is going to have its different challenges. So I just really hope that the incoming board and the senators, and just all members of student government, I really hope that they can lean on each other, give each other grace, approach everything with curiosity and the intent to understand, try to see all different sides of things. And stay strong on your word, but be open, and do your best to collaborate and work as a team. Because that’s the best way to go about this work is everyone using everyone’s perspectives in order to make a decision and to move forward.”