Michael Hoover and Nikky Potter were elected president and vice president for the 2025-26 academic year by a margin of 34 votes.
For the first time in four years, Taylor University had several candidates running for student body president (SBP) and vice president (SBVP).
Two days before the election, the Taylor Student Organization hosted a presidential debate in the LaRita Boren Campus Center on March 10. Hundreds of students attended, sitting in rows of tables, some with signs, others showed their support with claps and cheers.
Only students vote for the student body president and vice president, as the roles are frequently described as the bridge between the student body, administration and faculty. 962 students cast their votes, 46.8% of the student body.
The last SBP race with multiple campaigns featured Sarah Mangan and Jorge Martinez de Santiago winning over Layne Greenwood and Matt Bolander in March 2021, the same month President Michael Lindsay was announced as Taylor’s President-Elect.
Lindsay attended the debate and submitted one of the more challenging questions of the night, asking candidates for something they never wanted to change about Taylor and one aspect about Taylor University they would change if elected.
“I think it's exciting to have such an interest in students who want to step up and serve the student body,” Lindsay said. “The quality of the candidate pool is terrific, and I love this format that gives students a chance to hear directly from candidates. I think it's a great sign of campus leadership by our students.”
The four parties present included juniors Hoover and Potter running as ‘The Bridge TU,’ juniors Nate Kooi and David Voss running under the slogan ‘One Body,’ sophomore Zaji Marshall, without her running mate, junior Aidan Kroker, campaigning as ‘A to Z,’ and junior SBVP candidate Alli Gudeman representing the absent junior Matthew Albright for ‘Embrace tU.’
All the candidates expressed excitement at the debate and the challenge of running against multiple parties. Each believed this to be an opportunity for Taylor students to engage even further with their community.
“I think it's fantastic,” Hoover said at the debate. “I really love that there are multiple groups running because it's really pushed all of us to think through our policies, think through what we want to do and really work hard for this goal, and that's just gonna give whoever wins more value in that position.”
Hosted by current SBP senior Wade Francis, candidates were given 30 seconds to a minute to respond to each question. The clinical pace of the debate kept the event to under an hour, with Kooi and Voss earning the opening and closing statements.
Kooi, Hoover, Marshall and Gudeman fielded the majority of questions in what was a polite and optimistic event. The moderated debate opened with remarks from each candidate on their vision, background and plans for the position, before moving into pre-made questions. A final section, facilitated by Francis, featured questions emailed in from Taylor students during the debate before closing remarks.
“It's really great for the student body, I think, to have a choice of what next year looks like,” Gudeman said after the debate. “They can take ownership in that in a lot of ways. I think that the student body is in a really cool position because it grants kind of that voice.”
This year’s format was far simpler than the 2013 election, the last time Taylor had four parties running for SBP. The 2013 election featured a primary debate and primary vote, which narrowed the field down to two campaigns before a second debate and final election.
Last year’s SBP race featured Francis and Briona Graham running unopposed, but Francis was more than enthusiastic on the debate floor at the multiple nominees. Francis said the debate is a good way for candidates to understand the double-edged sword of meeting and speaking with people on campus while always being a known face around the university.
Also present at the debate was former SBVP Enoch Eicher, who called it a “beautiful” example of democracy at work. Despite Eicher winning with his running mate Elisabeth Nieshalla unopposed in 2022, he hopes Taylor will continue to have multiple options on the ticket.
“You (the SBP and SBVP) have a short time,” Eicher said. “It’s only one year. There's only so much you can move the needle. And it's just all about committing yourself and actually moving that needle and being satisfied with small wins and being satisfied with taking that one step forward and building off the success of people before you.”
