Students have come to accept the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) as a joke, its leaders nothing more than career-minded wafflers. We've forgotten that the student government has the power to enact real change in the university, and so has our student government itself. UPUA needs ambitious leaders whose sights are set higher than sending out a survey or performing public relations niceties.

Among this year's slate of UPUA candidates, only Gavin Keirans and his running mate, Valarie Russell, can credibly make the case that they will break free of the mold and deliver real change for students.

Keirans and Russell are the only candidates that have achievable, concrete goals rather than half-baked ideas.

With their experience and in-depth knowledge of UPUA, Keirans and Russell are the only candidates prepared to start working Thursday morning, without spending two months learning parliamentary procedure.

And among this year's selection of presidential tickets, Keirans and Russell are the only candidates who have ever attended a UPUA general assembly meeting.

In a platform that's three times longer than the most verbose of their opponents', Keirans and Russell spell out a series of attainable goals -- regular meetings with Student Affairs representatives, creating a student-landlord dispute resolution center and implementing a medical amnesty policy, among others.

They do share some initiatives with their opponents, like expanding CATA's late-night route. However, where the others only offer vague aspirations, Keirans and Russell propose a well-researched plan -- asking the University Park Allocations Committee to fund a test trial of late-night routes.

Keirans and Russell bring proven dedication to the table. After Keirans lost in last year's elections, he continued to advocate for students as executive director of grassroots organization Safeguard Old State. He already has a working relationship with interim Vice President for Student Affairs Gail Hurley. Russell has experience in both UPUA and the University Faculty Senate.

This experience contrasts sharply with presidential candidate Dan Kennedy, who said he only learned the location of the UPUA office when he dropped off his campaign packet.

Kennedy, while well-intentioned, doesn't have a comprehensive knowledge of student issues. He would have made a good candidate if he had done better research and hadn't spent his first two years of college being "apathetic."

One can't accuse presidential candidate Jordan Cascino and running mate Miatta Massaley of the same thing. Cascino has a good record of working with the administration successfully as the founder of the Paternoville Coordination Committee, and Massaley is a member of the UPUA's Legal Affairs department. They were also the only candidates to mention racial and ethnic divides in their platform, an oft-neglected issue on campus.

However, Cascino presented no clear goals for his time in office besides surveying the student body -- an idea that has already been tried twice this year and yielded low response rates and unclear results.

A president should run with a concrete set of ideas and take their election as an indication that the student body believes in the platform. While Cascino and Massaley seem like motivated individuals, they can't waste half their time in office figuring out what they want to do.

The same goes for presidential candidate Pete Sowa and his running mate Matt Sabo, who would make a great ticket if enthusiasm were the only qualification for the job.

They deserve credit for their sheer determination to "get things done" and their efforts to meet with administrators, but they don't have any clear ideas about how to avoid getting caught in UPUA's bureaucracy.

Plus, UPUA president and vice president should be close to full-time jobs -- we have doubts that they can dedicate that time while also holding leadership positions in the Blue Band and full course loads.

It's disappointing that only one ticket actually has working experience with UPUA's general assembly. However, while in our minds Keirans is the only credible candidate, this does not mean that he is the lesser of four evils.

We're confident that, if elected, he would spend the next year trying to accomplish specific goals, rather than searching for what those goals should be.

UPUA has spent two years trying to get on its feet. It's about time it had a president who is already standing.