At its May general body meeting, the Graduate Student Council elected a new executive board that will serve through the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
Kevin LoGiudice ScM’21 GS was reelected to serve another term as president while Nikita Redkar GS was elected as vice president of advocacy. Redkar previously served as a co-chair of social events.
Eight of the positions for the 13-member board were decided in uncontested races.
The election is the first to follow new rules adopted by the GSC at its March general body meeting. Under the new rules, individuals interested in running for a position were required to declare their candidacy through a formal nomination process.
This past October, the GSC also altered its constitution so that executive board members’ terms now align with the academic year, not the calendar year. The change aimed to allow new members to adjust to their positions over the summer, The Herald previously reported.
Natalie Hampton GS, the outgoing chair of communications, presided over the elections. After each candidate gave a two-minute speech outlining their platform, candidates took turns answering pre-submitted questions before leaving the room so that department representatives could vote. Winners were announced directly after the votes were tallied.
“My wish for VP is to increase transparency to effectuate needs-based solutions,” Redkar said during her speech. In the next year, she hopes to increase the number of town halls hosted by GSC to enhance communication between graduate students, the GSC board and University administrators.
Four races were contested, including treasurer, chair of master’s advocacy and chair of communications. The race for co-chairs of social life was a three-way contest in which two candidates were chosen.
Nazanin Ahmadi GS won reelection as treasurer in a close race over Jameson Pommenville GS. Additionally, Jasmine Warren GS was selected as chair of master’s advocacy and Ambree Robinson GS was voted to be chair of communications. Both candidates defeated Ryan Spinney GS, who ran for three separate positions.
The co-chairs of social life were selected in a two-round ballot between three candidates. Laurel Tollison GS won reelection in the first round, while George Tollefson GS was selected in the next ballot to secure the second seat over Spinney.
In addition to LoGiudice, five other incumbent candidates won reelection uncontested. Sofia Verba GS will remain as chair of student life, Aysun Akhundlu GS as chair of nominations, Jean Jerome GS as chair of diversity, equity and inclusion, Dominique Walker GS as chair of technology and MJ Ahmadi GS as chair of education.
Newcomer Kruti Savani GS won an uncontested race to become chair of international advocacy.
“I look forward to working with the new members of the executive board,” LoGiudice said at the end of the meeting. “Thank you all for being such dedicated GSC reps.”
After the elections took place, Akhundlu announced that Connor Meegan, the team lead manager for the media services team in the Office of Information Technology, will receive this year’s Bates-Clapp Award. Rebecca Laferriere, an academic manager at the School of Public Health’s Department of Health Services, Policy and Practice, will receive the Wilson-DeBlois Award.
The two awards recognize staff and community members who have made “outstanding contributions” to graduate students, according to the Graduate School’s website.
Ian Ritter is a senior staff writer for university news. A junior studying chemistry, he covers the graduate schools & students and admissions & financial aid beats. When he isn’t at The Herald or exploding lab experiments, you can find him playing the clarinet, watching the Mets or eating Ratty carrot cake.
