Students Elect Upperclassmen Representatives
By Otto Do and Tucker Gibbs
Student Council (StuCo) announced senior and upper rep election winners last Tuesday. Uppers Shalom Headly, Allison Kim and Bona Yoo were elected upper class representatives, and Ursula Wise, Hannah Lee and Drew Smith were appointed Class President, Class Vice President and Class Treasurer, respectively. To elect these representatives, StuCo employed a new electronic voting process this year.
In previous years, Student Council utilized physical election booths where voters scanned a QR code, signed a ballot and voted on their devices. Due to the pandemic, Student Council switched from in-person voting to an online process.
According to Elections Committee co-head Charlie Preston, the revised process was easier compared to previous years while remaining equally secure. With no paper ballots, however, the Elections Committee and advisors could no longer compare the number of votes casted to the actual number of voters.
Nonetheless, the Elections Committee is confident in the voting systems in place. “I don’t see any way that we need to have a margin of error or any other election checks,” Preston said. “We trust our students to not want to meddle with the system, and, if they wanted to, [it] would be pretty difficult.”
Additionally, representatives were not required to collect signatures, unlike in previous years. Instead, the Elections Committee held interviews with potential candidates, asking questions ranging from previous leadership experience to plans for the year. The interviews were recorded and posted on Student Council’s Canvas site.
Three seniors were and three uppers were elected out of the six seniors and five uppers approved by the committee.
The upper representatives stated that inclusivity, equity and community building are the focus for their tenure. They plan to host in-person events twice a month and collate campus resources for uppers that cover topics like physical and mental health. “We want to make sure that checking up on people is normalized,” Yoo said.
Upper Shalom Headly, the only representative who elected to stay home for the fall, elaborated on community bonding from a distance. “It’s easy to feel ignored or isolated when everyone else is at school while you’re at home,” Headley said. “The most important thing for us to do is make sure that people still feel like Exeter is a community for them to rely on. Loneliness brings a lot of stress, and Exeter gives us enough of that already.”
On Oct. 10, senior representatives met to discuss collective initiatives. “We discussed ways to foster anti-racism in our class and encourage our seniors and [postgraduates] to vote in the upcoming presidential election, if eligible. We want to address the racism BIPOC students and faculty face daily,” Lee said.
In addition, some of the representatives are focused on community connectivity. “We want to do virtual competitions, based on fun facts about our grade, and competitions that are in person as well, like scavenger hunts,” Senior Class President Ursula Wise said. “I think that that would just make things more interesting for everyone.”
With students in varying places and conditions, “it will be more challenging for class reps to stay connected to classmates this year,” Student Council adviser and Dean of Academic Affairs Laura Marshall said. “Students will need to make an effort to reach out to their reps to offer their opinions on different issues.”