Throughout the first two weeks of May, the Bowdoin Stu- dent Government (BSG) filled vacancies on its executive council and held elections for class councils.

In the Class of 2025 council elections, Khalil Kilani ’25 ran for president unopposed and won with 165 votes.

There were three candidates for Class of 2025 vice president: Stuart Howard ’25, Emmanuel Okyere ’25 and Alexander Ramos ’25. Although Okyere won the election with 103 votes to Howard’s 43 and Ramos’s 19, he was appointed to be the Chair of Student Affairs, and his first-choice votes were reallocated to Howard and Ramos under the ranked-choice voting system. Once Okyere’s first-choice votes were reallocated, Ramos defeated Howard 83 votes to 81.

In the Class of 2025 treasurer election, Brim Peabody ’25 defeated Kiley Briand ’25 with 104 votes to 64. Briand, however, will serve as the BSG Chair of the Treasury.

Finally, in the Class of 2025 election for Programming Director, there was a three-way race contested by Nia Ashby ’25, Abhi Nagireddygari ’25 and Eisa Rafat ’25. Ashby garnered 72 first-choice votes to Rafat’s 70 and Nagireddygari’s 25. Once Nagireddygari’s first-choice votes were reallocated, Ashby defeated Rafat 85 votes to 82.

Kilani reflected on what he and the council had accomplished this year and hopes to accomplish next year.

“The biggest thing we accomplished as a class council was throwing consistent events and making the BSG more approachable and attractive to students,” Kilani said. “Coming in, we wanted to promote class unity, and I think we did a pretty good job of that. But, of course, there’s always room to grow.”

Kilani also explained that he is considering appointing a fifth member to the class council for the optional Community Outreach position. Given the unstructured definition of this role in the BSG Constitution, Kilani hopes the position can be shaped by its future holder to promote outreach to the Brunswick community.

“We want to promote campus unity, but the Community Outreach Officer would look at ways of bringing us beyond that,” Kilani said.

The elections for the Classes of 2023 and 2024 were far less competitive, with only one candidate—Melissa Su ’24—running for president of the Class of 2024, and no candidates running for any of the four positions for the Class of 2024.

Su was involved with student government in high school, but said she has not interacted much with the BSG during her two years at Bowdoin.

“I haven’t heard much about [the] BSG,” Su said. “I really want to do something that changes that and…make sure that I have a larger presence on campus than other BSG [class] presidents have had before.”

Su also spoke to increasing connection within the Class of 2024 after its first year was heavily disrupted by Covid-19.

“I want our grade to be closer and more united,” Su said. “We have been on campus this whole year, but we did have a very unique [first year] experience. I think there is a lot of work to be done there to help integrate us more into campus [and] unit- ing us more with other classes. I think bigger events can help do that.”

Briand, a new member of the executive council, spoke to the challenges ahead.

“I have a lot to learn from [those with experience on the executive council],” Briand said. “At the end of the day, [the BSG] only holds so much power. But if we’re all together, and we’re all on the same page, [we can] take ad- vantage of all our resources.”

Briand added that she plans to work to better utilize the Student Activities Funding Committee’s resources as its chair.

“We have a lot of resources, and I don’t think we’re using them the best that we can. I think the more students become aware of that, and look into the rules on budgets, [they will] use those resources, because they’re here for us,” Briand said.