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MISHAWAKA—The executive student council elections were held on March 26. There were two sets of candidates that ran this year. It included presidential candidate Zach Kern, with his vice president nominee being Ashleigh Neier, and presidential candidate Josiah Owens, with his vice president nominee being Life Granville. Both side were heavily active on social media and posted flyers around campus. One of the biggest reasons for this is to bring awareness to the student council.
“I think both sides want to win this election,” Neier said. “So one side does something and the other side will counter. We really want to make it known that the student council is holding an election. For instance, when I ran last year, I would talk to people and they didn’t know that there was an election going on. So just making sure that the student body knows what is going on is very important to both sides.”
One of the key themes that the Kern-Neier duo is running on is their experience. Both Zach Kern and Ashleigh Neier have served on the Underclassmen Student Council. Neier was the former underclassmen president, and Kern was the former vice president of the underclassmen council.
“One of the biggest things that we are running on is bringing back past events,” Neier said, “For instance, the student council held the Christmas party for a number of years, but they dropped it, and then student activities dropped it. So we really just want to bring that back. Another one of our key points is our experience. Both Zach and me have been on the student council so we know how it works.”
On the other side of the ballot are Josiah Owens and Life Granville. They are running on three main points: God-centered, communication, and connection.
“We want to make sure everyone is on the same page with how the campus works,” Granville said. “Whether it be the simple communication with how the campus works, or just a general fluidity between the student council and the student body. Along with that goes being God-centered. We want to make sure that God is the center of what we do. At Bethel there are people that are turned off when it comes to God, and we want to help them experience God for themselves.”
One of the major goals for both campaigns was bringing awareness to Student Council. Both sides made it very apparent that, win or lose, bringing awareness was the most important thing. The Student Council makes countless decisions for the student body, including planning events, taking care of issues around campus and much more.
“Having not run for the student council before, we wanted to make the student council more well known,” Granville said. “Before I started the process of running, I didn’t know what student council was, and that was upsetting to me. I wanted to know what they were doing and make an impact around campus in a meaningful way.”
Zach Kern and Ashleigh Neier won the election. For more information regarding the Bethel University student council, you can visit their Instagram page @bu_stuco.
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