Bruen and Santos Re-Elected to Student Association Presidency, Vice Presidency Among Comptroller, Slew of Assembly Candidates
By Chilekasi Adele
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — David Bruen was elected as Student Association President for the second time Saturday, becoming the first president in the student governing body’s 65-year history to be re-elected.
Bruen, and Adia Santos — who was elected as SA Vice President alongside Bruen — won in the second round of the new ranked-choice voting system SA implemented earlier this year.
“Because of the students, we won this election. Now let’s go Pursue Legacy together,” Bruen, a Junior and native of West Nyack, N.Y., wrote on Twitter Saturday morning.
Santos, who is from the Bronx, replaced current Vice President Darnelle Stinfort on this year’s ticket. Stinfort, a senior, is set to graduate at the end of the current semester.
The SA Board of Elections revealed the results Saturday via an email to Syracuse University students. The results were initially set to be revealed on the Syracuse University quad at noon Saturday. As CitrusTV’s Peter Elliot reported Friday, those plans were changed due to the possibility of inclement weather.
In the first round of vote counting, Bruen and Santos received 46.7% of the vote, while runners-up Jordan Pierre and Lauren Gloster finished with 36.8%. Breton MacNeil and Sky Gorczynski were eliminated after the first round after accumulating 16.5% of the vote.
In the next round, Bruen and Santos passed the 50% threshold needed to win, finishing 4.1% above the benchmark with 850 votes. Pierre and Gloster finished with 45.9% of the vote.
Nyah Jones was elected as the SA Comptroller with nearly 78.4% of the vote. Jones, a junior from Chicago, Ill., ran uncontested for the second year in a row.
The Syracuse University/SUNY-ESF chapter of the New York Public Interest Research Group won its referendum put on the ballot. The question posed in this year’s election asked if Syracuse University’s Student Activity Fee should continue to include $3 per semester per student to support the local NYPIRG chapter. “Yes” won with nearly 72% of the vote.
A number of students also were elected to a plethora of assembly positions. SA’s Assembly At-large will include Kennedy Williams, Mariah Schwambach, Torryn Sales, Anna Ginelli, William Treloar, Jack McCarty, Kaitlin LaRosa, Jadyn Washington, Sukhleen Atwal, Rachel Kern, and Karen Cooper.
Representing SU’s School of Architecture in the SA Assembly will be Oji Anderson, and Alexander Anis. Melanie Salas, Emma Ferguson, Kam Ting Cheung, and Yasmin Nayrouz will represent SU’s College of Arts and Sciences in the Assembly.
Ralph Graham and Elliot Salas will represent SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. Monica Jankovic was elected as the only representative of SU’s iSchool with just over 67% of the vote. SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs will be represented by Linda Baguma, Samantha Schenker, and Aidan O’Connell.
Thomas Simmons and Richard Maj will represent SU’s Newhouse School, while the Whitman school will be represented by Haig Chakamian, Noah Cordes and Dylan France.
SA’s 2022 election turnout finished slightly below its numbers from last year. 1,573 students voted in this year’s SA election, about 9.9% of the combined SU/ESF undergraduate population, Board of Elections Chair Richard Kaufman IV confirmed to CitrusTV Saturday via email. Last spring, about 10.2% of the student body voted.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Richard Maj, who was elected to an SA assembly seat representing Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, is a member of CitrusTV.
