Student Council Executive Board Elections

By Anvi Bhate, Maximilian Chuang and Anna Kim

Student Council (StuCo) announced upper Georgie Venci as the next Vice President and upper Kiesse Nanor and lower Aaron Joy as the next co-Secretaries of the 2021-2022 Student Council Executive Board on Tuesday. Uppers Bona Yoo and Siona Jain advanced to the final runoff election for Student Council President, to be held next Tuesday, March 9.

The newly elected Student Council Executive Board members shared their goals and views with The Exonian.

Venci focused his campaign around creating safe spaces for those of all identities, stating that “at the center of this is the trust between the faculty in the administration and the students.”

“I hope to work for the student body by making Vs (Visitations) as equitable as possible. There was a letter published in The Exonian saying that closeted LGBTQ+ students did not feel comfortable coming out with the current policy,” Venci said. “How many more kids have to say that they are hurt and made uncomfortable by a policy before it gets changed by the administration?”

Venci wishes for the next board to “have more conversations about the anti-racist mini courses and even hopefully send a team to help design the next round of courses.” Venci hopes that these anti-racist courses can be made smaller, and that such work may be integrated into current curriculum classes.

Joy’s campaign was condensed into its tagline: “Let’s Get Real.” Through pillars of individual empowerment, the promotion of happiness, mental health and active anti-racism, Joy promised to create tangible impact.

Joy has proposed extending check-in on spring term Tuesday nights before off-day Wednesdays (In the spring term schedule, students will have a day off every other Wednesday). Additionally, he wishes to create a space where students can submit anti-racist initiatives with the Anti-Racist Online Suggestion Box.

Nanor’s platform focused on “giving voting power back to the general student population by implementing a direct democracy system” and “address[ing] problems of racism and racially charged confrontations in the Exeter community.”

Additionally, Nanor will work towards establishing a more transparent relationship between StuCo and the student body. “I would best serve the student body by making sure that there is a clear way for those who don’t regularly attend Stuco meetings to be informed on the discussion taking place,” Nanor said. “Part of students’ dissatisfaction with the current system is that they find it difficult to learn what’s going on, and so I would push to open up new and efficient avenues of communication.”

“The biggest thing that I’d like to accomplish is to use this constitutional revision process to create a constitution that serves the interests of students today, not students 30+ years ago. Not only does this revised constitution plan give us the opportunity to think about the ways that the old constitution went wrong, but it also gives us the chance to seriously consider what we as a school expect from a student council,” Nanor said.

Presidential candidates Jain and Yoo outlined the tenets of their campaigns.

Jain has promised to dedicate Student Council’s $30,000 budget to fulfill the primary mission of a President, which she defines as amplifying “priorities of an inclusive community.”

Specifically, Jain has outlined increased spending for Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) clubs and general student life. “OMA clubs and their leaders play as much a role as CAPS in making this campus a welcoming environment, perhaps more so. For student life, I plan on spending portions on perks like kayaks or community events like paintball,” she said.

As a former co-Secretary, Jain’s campaign includes her previous work in Student Council. “I would best serve the student body because I’m already doing what most other candidates are running on.” she continued. “At the end of the day, I have the ideas and the qualifications to make [my ideas] happen. I will best serve the students as an ally, working to uplift and amplify voices outside of StuCo.” Jain said.

In her campaign, Yoo cited neglect of the wellbeing of primarily BIPOC students as a central issue. Yoo stated that such negligence, despite ample financial resources, inspired her $30,000 budget plan, which dictates budget investments into student life events, supplies, anti-racist resource subscriptions and clubs.

If elected President, Yoo committed to adding an accountability clause to the obscure impeachment section of the Student Council Constitution to ensure the board regularly updates the student body on financial and administrative progress. Yoo has also proposed eliminating the Vs Policy’s intra-dorm relationship ban, stating that it is “emotionally threatening to the students of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Yoo’s campaign has been based around transparency and student’s perspectives, as she believes the student body will cease looking to the Student Council Executive Board for leadership if otherwise. “Negligence breeds indifference,” she said.

Jain and Yoo will participate in a debate before the final runoff on March 9.