I could feel my heart pounding as the minutes ticked closer to 12:00PM on April 21, 2017. I was trying my best to get people to vote last minute, and Gab LePage had just voted three minutes before the polls closed. A sense of relief washed over me when I knew no one else could vote, but then the time kept ticking by. Then five minutes before half past 12, I texted Megan Hotaling – what’s happening? Where are the results? Who won?! Unfortunately, even more time passed as I figured out how to find the results on Blackboard. Then it happened, the text was sent to D’Nysha and I – it was a dead tie.
The race was on.
I don’t think I have ever moved so fast in my life to get off my bed until that moment. I’ve always been the quiet type; it’s very out of my element to be pushy or talk to people I don’t know. Usually I like to do a lot of behind-the-scene things and have people come to me when they need something instead of the other way around – not this time.
Running around Colby Hall, I told people they needed to vote for D’Nysha Cook or Danielle Stevens (with an enormous help from Mikayla Holzinger) and that they had a chance to be entered to win $50 in Flex Cash if they voted for Student Senate President.
It was nearly 1:00PM, and voting stopped at 4:00PM, and you would think you could go to every dorm within two hours, but that’s not the case – taking the time to knock on every single door, except for Sanborn and Rowe, took over three hours. We didn’t stop; we asked everyone to vote for the next Student Senate President.
Within the new extended time frame they had set for the polls after the tie was announced, D’Nysha and I were able to secure almost an extra hundred votes between the two of us. I thought my anxiety would be over by noon that day, but I was so wrong. It increased while Mikayla and I ran around campus for three hours trying to secure votes (for everyone’s candidate of choice) – I wanted it to be worth it. I have never wanted or needed to win something so bad before.
When the results came in that I had won by 10%, my anxiety still didn’t go away – although I was beyond happy, my gears started to work faster. I needed to get people involved and I needed to live up to the message of my campaign. I realized ensuring New England College’s mission statement on values 3 and 8 – promoting diversity and securing relationships with administration – is going to be hard when we have no senators.
Since being elected President, I’ve been working to get people involved – but how do you do that? I have sent out E-mails to the student body, and individually, to try to get people involved. Being a part of Student Senate is so crucial when you want to see change.
But Senate still doesn’t have a full e-board since two other positions need to be filled. My hope for the coming year is to heighten as many people’s confidence in Student Senate as I can, and get things done, since for so many years Student Senate has not been a priority.
That’s about to change – having been elected as President, I’ve already begun to make Student Senate my number one priority over everything.
