By Hannah Haney | Echo
After a week of intense campaigning, hours of planning and lots of handshaking, juniors Kehlay Dunah and Cory Chea have been elected Student Body President (SBP) and Student Body Vice President (SBVP), respectively, for the 2014-2015 academic year.
The duo received 486 votes, defeating opponents junior Stephen Herman and sophomore Taylor Hughes, who received 231 votes.
Herman and Hughes are confident that the office of Student Body President is in good hands.
"(It's nice) to know that someone is going in there already knowing that Taylor is doing some cool things and trying to continue what Taylor has already been doing," Herman said.
Dunah and Chea have pegged their success to their very different leadership backgrounds.
"Cory serves on the TSO Executive Cabinet and I'm currently a PA," Dunah said. "We bring different aspects of leadership into next year's executive cabinet. He's bringing the most logistical side . . . already knowing what's going on. I'm coming in with a more relational aspect which will be great in supporting the other cabinets."
Dunah and Chea first met their sophomore year when they worked together in the Multi-Ethnic Student Association (MESA) in 2012. Chea moved on to become president of MESA and Dunah became a PA on Second Center Olson.
"We both knew that we wanted to run, but we had to make sure that we had the right person to run with," Chea said. "We didn't feel comfortable with anyone else. . . . We know that we work well together. We know that we complement each other in our personalities and strengths."
Dunah and Chea's platform is primarily focused around communicating with students and continuing the work that the former SBP and SBVP, Brianna Leever and Jake Owens, have done over the past year.
"We believe that it will be a smooth transition because of the fact that Cory has been working for TSO," Dunah said. "One of my strengths is adaptability, and I think I will adapt well to lessons that Cory has to teach me on filling in this role. It will be a smooth transition and we want to finish up and pick up where (Leever and Owens) left off."
While they had only one week to spread their names and their platform around campus, Dunah and Chea were able to quickly get the word out with the help of some very supportive friends-despite the fact that both candidates were out of town for a few days."We had friends back here printing off flyers, putting them up," Dunah said. "We weren't (always) here to run our campaign, but the level of support has been overwhelming. We're truly blessed."
The two also visited the dorms during open house hours over the weekend and hosted an open house on Tuesday, March 11, allowing students to interact with them on a personal level.
All of the candidates met in the Student Union on Wednesday night at 10 p.m. for debates. Both tickets answered questions posed by Owens and the students in attendance.
According to Chea, the next step will be to appoint their executive cabinet.
"We know how important it is for a cabinet to work well with each other, but also to have individual personalities," Chea said. "So we would take the recommendation of current executive cabinet members for future leaders, but we would definitely interview a wide variety of people to see which group can have the best cohesion as the TSO executive cabinet in order to bring great campus events next year."
Dunah already has goals in mind for once the cabinet is appointed.
"One of the many things we would like to do would be organizing the student calendar just so it's less cluttered," Dunah said. "We would like to have students be able to attend events on campus and not feel overwhelmed with an over-programmed calendar. Also (we want to create) an email account . . . where students can voice their concerns."
Among other things, Dunah and Chea are advocating for the return of the DC waffle iron, longer library hours on Sunday nights, a printer in the Student Union and improving the pathway from Samuel Morris to the DC, affectionately named the "Trail of Tears."
For more information on Dunah and Chea's platform and goals for their presidency, visit their Facebook page.(Thumbnail photograph by Tabitha Hillebrand)
