President-elect thanks voters

By: Mike Brill – Columnist, Senior

I wanted to write this article to thank each and every one of you. I am humbled to say that I am your next student government president. My running mate, Hayley Clark, and I decided to run because we believe that student government needs strong leaders to fight the big issues on campus on your behalf. We ran our campaign focusing on three of those issues: sexual assault, diversity inclusiveness and mental health. But there are many other aspects of campus life that affect the students here at the university that we are anxious to help fix.

We wanted to explain to students how we planned on fixing those pervasive problems on campus, so our campaign plan was simply to go out and tell people about ourselves, our goals and our ideas.

We did not have a fancy strategy or an elaborate social media campaign, and we didn’t make any promises to anybody to help gain backing. But as we traversed campus and had personal conversations with students, we were astounded by the amount of support we received from those we spoke to.

We found many who passionately believe in us and what we stand for. We talked to students who truly believe that we can best lead the student body and create substantial positive change here at the University of Dayton. Knowing we had such strong supporters behind us helped keep us excited and dedicated to the campaign. It is not a common occurrence to find students who are fired up about a student government race, especially here at UD, so we are very grateful for that.

Many of our friends, and even some strangers, were willing to on our behalf, and those people are the reason we won the election. We could not have won without those who told everyone they knew to vote for us. We could not have won without those who talked to their friends and roommates about what we stand for. And we certainly could not have won without the help of those who took the time out of their day. We won only because we had the support of the hundreds of students on campus who truly believed in us, so thank you.

You helped us win, and now we are ready to help you. We want to represent every student here at UD.  Clark and I both are excited to represent the student body and help improve the lives of every student here at the University of Dayton.

As president and vice president of the student body, that is our job. If you would like to tell me about an issue you have, or simply sit down for a meal and talk with me, please send me an email at brillm3@udayton.edu or reach out to me if you see me around campus.

My goal as student government president is to be available and accessible to every student, so that no student’s issue goes unanswered. I look forward to speaking with and meeting anyone who needs help getting their voice heard here at UD.