Student Union saw its highest number of applicants for First Year Class Council this fall semester, with 25 students running for five positions.

A group of first-year students, the First Year Class Council (FYCC) works on creating events geared toward bonding opportunities for the freshman class. With seven students running for President, four for Vice President of Administration, five for Vice President of Finance, four for Vice President of Programming and five for Vice President of Public Relations.

Student Union executives believe their recruitment pushes have had to do with the influx of FYCC apps. Efforts towards retention from their pre-orientation pool—along with excitement around the upcoming debate—may have played key roles, along with a realignment of application processes.

SU shifted their pre-orientation program’s focus more towards recruitment this year. Of the 50-plus kids that attended SU’s pre-orientation, more than half returned to the office either to run as part of FYCC or to apply to be a part of Student Union.

“We structured the pre-orientation program to have an advocate, allocate, program aspect, which is how Student Union is structured,” junior Sankalp Kapur, SU vice president of administration, said. “They get a sense of what it’s like to work here and what it’s like to be a part of this space and this organization, early [on] so as soon as the year starts up they are reaching out, talking to their friends…so the buzz is high,”

Previously, SU would hold FYCC elections before releasing applications for school-wide Student Union positions that don’t require elections (such as Constitutional Council). They found this process prevented first-year students for applying for such positions, as they often had misconceptions that all SU positions require elections.

“One key theme we tried to push for this particular recruitment cycle is that you don’t necessarily have to run for an election to be a part of SU,” SU President and senior Kenneth Sng said. “We have worked really hard over this summer to align the recruitment cycles. Now students no longer have to choose between the two deadlines.”

In addition, Student Union also revamped their recruitment program.

“Amelia Fong, who is the VP of Public Relations, was able to set up one giant recruitment program where we were able to get information out to the freshman class. [It] leads them nicely from the pre-orientation program that Student Union conducts—we meet a lot of interested freshman at the pre-orientation program—through Bear Beginnings into the first week of school,” Kapur, who’s in charge of recruitment and retention, said.

First-year Taylor Chen, running for FYCC Vice President of Finance, is considering majoring in finance and so sees the position as personally and academically relevant as well as a campus service.

Another first-year applicant running for VP Finance, Sami Pathak, participated in the pre-orientation program and wanted to stay involved in SU.

“I got the sense that Student Union offers a lot. My goal is for everyone to get the most out of these four years,” Pathak said. “I want to get students on campus out of the Wash. U. bubble and into the St. Louis community, specifically East St. Louis.”

Sng also suspects that the Convocation proceedings may have been a contributing benefactor to the influx in applicants.

“I feel like students enjoyed Convocation more this year. The Student Union speech—I think that might have put a face to the organization,” Sng said.

Overall, the increase in FYCC applicants has had a positive impact on the organization, however there are still a limited number of seats available.

“A lot of equally qualified candidates may be rejected. We are looking to create more positions,” Sng said. “We try to keep as many passionate individuals as we can.”