After a week of open polls, the Boston University student body elected Build BU to be next year’s Student Government executive board. SG representatives and the Student Election Commission convened for a dinner Tuesday night for the announcement of the winning slate.
SEC co-chair Ria Wang announced the winning slate to senators, the current e-board and members of both contending slates.
The winning slate’s members include future student body president Devin Harvin, Hafzat Akanni (future executive vice president), Lovie Burleson (vice president of internal affairs) and Hector Meneses (vice president of finance). All slate members except Akanni were in attendance, along with Kenneth Delatorre and Simran Multani from losing slate BUnited.
BUnited congratulated Build BU after the announcement and declined to comment further.
Harvin said the win felt good after having campaigned with the other members of his slate for several weeks.
“We worked hard,” Harvin said. “We campaigned hard to reach as many people as we [could], and it paid off.”
Burleson said Build BU is ready to take over SG from the current e-board, headed by President SaraAnn Kurkul. Harvin said his slate plans to prioritize catering to student needs and addressing what students want first.
SEC co-chair Vincent D’Amato said just under 1,700 votes were cast in the election, a 500-vote increase compared to last year’s election.
“Coming from where we started, I’d say it was a huge success,” D’Amato said.
While this semester’s election season was not easy, Wang said, she is happy with the voter turnout.
“The publicity of getting people to vote was better,” Wang said. “Overall, I think we got through all the obstacles and it turned out pretty well.”
Going forward, D’Amato and Wang said they plan to make SEC more active year-round and include the SEC rules in the SG constitution.
“This whole election should not be a few months of work,” Wang said. “It should be a whole year thing — trying to work with the slates, trying to get people to run and setting up press conferences [and] debates.”
Madeline Lucke, a freshman in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said she attended the announcement dinner because she has been an assistant to the SEC since the campaigns began in early March.
“I felt pretty good. It was a pretty fair election,” Lucke said. “I think the student body really spoke for who it wants to win.”
Aditya Jain, a sophomore senator in the College of Engineering, said he is happy with the outcome of the election. He met the members of Build BU when they spoke specifically to the ENG Student Government during their campaign.
“They actually came to the engineering senators and the engineering Student Government, and so there I got to know a lot about their ideas,” Jain said. “I’m really excited to get to work with them in the future so I’m really excited about the outcome”
Jain said he hopes Build BU will be able to increase SG’s outreach on campus and inspire current senators toward change.
“They’ve talked a lot about creating a community,” Jain said of Build BU, “and I think that that’s one of the strongest things we can do as a student government — getting the entire campus involved in that community.”
Kurkul said the dinner reminded her of her own time running for SG president a year ago. As a member of the current e-board, Kurkul will be interacting directly with the e-board-elect, helping to train and prepare members for their positions. She said she is excited to see the work Build BU has planned for SG in her absence next year.
“I think this year we really planted the seeds,” Kurkul said. “We are able to get more student engagement. I really hope for next year they can kind of continue off of what we started, in terms of building a strong community on campus.”
Harvin said he hopes his new constituents are ready to turn over a new slate.
“We ran on the idea that campaigning doesn’t end when we win, and we’ve won now, so we need you to be ready.” Harvin said, referring to the student body. “We’re going to come back to your student group — come back to all you individuals that we talked to. We need you to be invested again.”
