StuCo Executive Board Elections Heat Up

As voting week approaches, Student Council (StuCo) candidates are once again busy sprawling posters across doors and revising their platform statements for elections next Tuesday, Apr. 28. Over the last week, nine Exonians contended for the StuCo Executive Board positions of president, vice president and secretary.

Last Tuesday,  Apr. 21, assembly featured speeches from the vice presidential and secretarial candidates, along with a debate between the two presidential candidates. Each had the opportunity to elaborate on his or her plans as a potential member of the StuCo Exec Board to the student body before votes were cast afterward in Agora.

The primary election ended with presidential upper candidates Kevin Zhen and Rebecca Ju and vice-presidential upper candidates Audrey DeGuerrera, Jun Park and Ashley Baxter. Upper and VP candidate Chris Lee was eliminated in primaries. Lower Joel Lotzkar, receiving over 50 percent of the vote in the primary, won the secretary election against lowers Alejandro Arango and Nada Zohayr.

“The elections are exciting this year and certainly give everyone on campus a chance to think about what student-led issues should be happening next year.”

The remaining presidential and vice-presidential candidates now have a week to lobby themselves and further elucidate their goals for the coming year. Candidates have brought up many new ideas to implement in the following school year with the goal of improving the school.

Ju feels well qualified for the role of StuCo President and ready to make a difference in the school by reshaping StuCo’s relations with the school and student body. After watching her sister go through the whole process last year and serving on the Rec Committee for a year and a half, she is confident in her knowledge of StuCo and in her ideas to benefit the school.

One of Ju’s main concerns revolves around the topic of the health center and, more specifically, improving mental health on campus. After talking to Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Jeanne Stern, Ju found that the health center also hopes to further make its services more accessible to students. Ju hopes to create a panel for the health center council to come to StuCo, or even an anonymous email address dedicated completely to health center feedback. 

To complement her plans with health center transparency, Ju would also like to “change the way in which we address mental health.”

“I want to help train the nurses at the desk of the health center on how to deal with issues of mental health,” she said. “Sometimes if someone comes in with an issue like an anxiety attack, and the counselor on duty is busy, it can leave that person in a worse state and make them not want to ever go back. Considering we only have three counselors, issues like this need to be actively prevented.”

In contrast to Ju, Zhen centered part of his campaign around the idea of more rubrics and sample papers for the humanities courses. Zhen hopes to make a “positive and concrete change on the campus” by providing more writing examples students from diverse writing backgrounds can emulate.

“This idea came from a genuine concern for new students, especially new uppers and seniors who often have no idea what kind of material teachers look for in papers, but are expected to write like three or four year [Exeter] students,” Zhen explained. “By instituting these sample papers, students will have a better idea of how to write, while at the same time be able to experiment.”

Zhen believes his role as secretary throughout this year has prepared him well for the position of president. He has “heard and written about the concerns and voices of the community,” as well as worked along with the current president and vice-president to pick apart “virtually every issue on campus.”

Vice-presidential candidates shared many themes with Ju and Zhen, including transparency and communication. DeGuerrera, especially, based much of her platform in ideas of communication between the student body and their representatives in StuCo. 

A part of StuCo for three years, the majority of that time spent on Budget Committee, DeGuerrera hopes to encourage conversations between StuCo, faculty and students so the decisions made in StuCo represent a more comprehensive span of students’ opinions. She also hopes to work on “out of the box policies” such as “sick days” for boarders and a reevaluation of graduation requirements to allow more freedom in course selection.

Like DeGuerrera, Park has been a part of StuCo for three years. As an experienced class representative and member of the Budget Committee, he hopes to “lead council in a positive direction” and deepen his involvement with the school and expand its relationship with StuCo.

While Park also expressed a strong interest in increasing transparency, his ideas were more directed toward the administration and the DC process.

“The truth is that no one knows exactly how the process works or how certain cases are dealt with,” Park said. “I believe that the student body has the right to know certain procedural aspects of DC.”

However, Baxter and Lee focused their attention more on the efficiency of Stuco, and its ability to follow through on tangible tasks.

“I want the people in that room to care, to really want to be there,” Baxter said. She hopes to help the president by holding committees more accountable for their responsibilities and by keeping members more involved.”

Lee shared similar ideas to Baxter. He hoped to keep conversations from becoming “side tracked” since an hour a week provides little time for a thorough meeting.

Arango’s platform also included incorporating a greater range of concepts discussed each week at StuCo. He felt like the “link is broken” between StuCo and the student body, as shown by the discussions of dress code where some students and their opinions appeared to be ignored. As a dorm rep, he sometimes felt this gap in his dorm meetings as well and hoped to address the issue by having dorm reps talk more frequently with their sections.

Like Arango, this year’s other secretary candidates worked hard to draft unique ideas and concrete plans to help reform the campus. Zohayr hoped to create a handbook for students addressing commonly asked questions. She felt that students are forced to frequently ask their dorm mates simple questions that should be readily available to them. A handbook could prevent this problem and save many Exonians some precious time.

As Secretary, Lotzkar hopes to ease the lives of students. Next year he plans to look for ways to “enhance the work balance at school and to reduce stress.” He would also like to influence more school spirit around campus, especially with more activities leading up to the E/a games.

As Lotzkar takes over the role of secretary, he maintains confidence in his ability to lead.

“This year, I was one of three Lower Reps,” he said. “With several years’ experience in Student Council, both here and at my old school, I feel that I can take on the responsibilities of Secretary.”

According to senior Robert Conner, Lotzkar and the rest of the candidates this year had strong backgrounds in StuCo experience. He felt “reassured” that no matter who wins, he can be confident in them and their qualifications.

“It is rare for every single candidate in an Exec Board election to all already have StuCo experience,” he said. “The elections are exciting this year and certainly give everyone on campus a chance to think about what student-led issues should be happening next year.”