Studen Union’s executive branch for the 2025-2026 academic year (photos courtesy of Asher Lubin, Ashton Lee, Meris Damjanovic, Beni Bisimwa, and Ella Scott)

Student Union (SU) will have their inauguration for newly-elected SU leadership and members this Thursday in Tisch Commons at 7 p.m. This event comes after SU’s spring election in which 26.3% of the student body voted on incoming Senate, Treasury, and executive branch representatives. 

Junior and departing Vice President (VP) of Engagement Ashton Lee won the presidency with 778 votes or 40.6% of the vote. Lee ran on the Engage SU slate alongside juniors Grace Marcus, Ella Scott, Meris Damjanovic, and Beni Bisimwa.

While Scott, Damjanovic, and Bisimwa won their races for VP of Engagement, Finance, and Programming, respectively, first-year and senator Asher Lubin led the Executive VP race against Marcus by 5 votes. 

Co-campaigning, or slates, is a relatively new addition to SU elections which started in April 2023. Several semesters after its implementation, it is unclear whether its place is solidified in SU elections to come. 

“It’s something we are continuing to evaluate but it’ll ultimately be a decision made by the Election Commission next fall,” senior and Election Commissioner Gavin Wagner said.

This semester, candidates sophomore Bralin Duckett, first-year Idara Etuks, first-year Courtney Lucas, and first-year Sarah Terry were deducted 500 votes for not submitting their expenditure reports. Given the rules of the election were detailed in the Election Packet, Wagner feels these deductions were fair. 

“The Election Commission feels as if these deductions were fairly administered through the procedure outlined in the packet,” Wagner said. “The rules and regulations surrounding expenditure reports, including when they are due, are clearly outlined and all the candidates were made aware of them before the campaigning period begins.”

In the Senate race, junior Spencer Snipe and first-year Ella McCauley led with 659 and 501 votes, respectively. Sophomore Keysha Brutus and first-year Palladium Liang led the Treasury race with 685 and 633.

This election also passed block funding for EST, Campus Y, and Uncle Joe’s as well as three new amendments. The new amendments call for the VP of Engagement and VP of Finance to preside over speaker elections instead of the Executive VP.

Senate:

First-years: Ella McCauley, Casey Preis, Ismail Botchway, Ethan Skolnick

Sophomores: Spencer Snipe, Anita Buchanan, Lily Smith, Emaan Sayied, Maryanne Agyei, Matthew Broome

Juniors: Charlie Weingarten

Seniors: N/A

Treasury: 

First-years: Palladium Liang, Romen Der Manuelian, Paul Bradford, Rory O’Shea, Kimberly Kimani

Sophomores: Keysha Brutus, Cora Johnson, Ethan Sosland, Aram Ashrafzadeh

Juniors: Aryan Pradhan, Olav Olsen

Seniors: N/A

Executive Board:

President: Ashton Lee

Executive VP: Asher Lubin

VP of Engagement: Ella Scott

VP of Finance: Meris Damjanovic

VP of Programming: Beni Bisimwa

Editor’s note: This article has been updates to reflect that the time of the inauguration is 7 p.m. this Thursday