After weeks of campaigning, the students of Taylor have elected a new student body president and vice president for the 2021-2022 school year — juniors Sarah Mangan and Jorge Martinez de Santiago.
Mangan will serve as president while Martinez de Santiago will be vice president.
Both teams encouraged students to get out and vote leading to 811 total votes from undergraduates and MAHE students.
The winning pair ran their campaign on the platform of “Reset,” using the scripture passage Romans 5:3-5 focusing on the points of practicing proximity, embracing differences and creating a lasting legacy.
“We have so much hope for the university for next year,” Mangan said. “That hope comes from wanting to serve (locally) and partner with the community, and that’s a huge heart of both of ours.”
Opponents Bolander and Greenwood focused on the word “Clarity” in their campaign, having similar goals as Mangan and Martinez de Santiago of being the voice of the student body and creating better channels of communication.
Though it looked a little different this year as compared to pre-2020 election years, both teams participated in rigorous campaigning. From Instagram pages that shared their platforms and to posters, stickers and meet and greet events, both Mangan/Martinez de Santiago and Bolander/Greenwood made sure students knew who they were and what their platforms were.
Bolander even participated in campaigning from across the ocean while he studies abroad in Oxford this spring, Zooming into events and doing as much work as he could while in a different time zone.
“Campaigning (looked) like cozy dorm room lighting and dreaming and hoping for the future,” Mangan said.
Steve Austin, director of student programs, said that all candidates put themselves vulnerably in front of the Taylor student body and he appreciates their “thoughtfulness, energy and posture of hopeful humility towards leadership.”
“Their campaigns, much like the roles of Student Body President and Vice President, can have (an) appearance of popularity and influence,” Austin said. “However, this is a veneer covering the truth that all four candidates have worked tirelessly behind the scenes just for the opportunity to be elected to serve for a whole year, working hard and mostly behind the scenes on behalf of students. This is why I hope students take the time to vote, because all four candidates and the good work they hope to do are worth their consideration.”
“I couldn’t be happier with who we’re running against,” Bolander said. “It is hard to put into words how thankful I am to know that the people we’re running against we really trust with our university as well.”
Mangan and Martinez de Santiago have many goals for next school year to continue to build upon their platform of reset.
“We believe the trials of this past year have produced endurance in the (student) body,” Mangan and Martinez de Santiago wrote on their Instagram. “This endurance has produced character. And this character gives us hope for next fall whether we’re 6 ft apart or shoulder to shoulder.”
Read more about their plans and ideas for 2021-2022 in next week’s edition of The Echo on March 22.
