The new student council of the Associated Students of Madison was announced Wednesday night with 11 out of 12 members who ran on the Unity ticket being named to the council.
Students representing UW-Madison’s various schools competed for the seats on the legislative body of ASM — which are apportioned by student population within each college — to make influential decisions regarding the student body’s interests.
After two days of voting and a 7.3 percent voter turnout, the final results were tallied:
Bella Rupnick and Sybil Worms — both Unity ticket candidates — claimed the two College of Agriculture and Life Sciences seats.
Molly McEneany and Robin Du were elected to be the School of Business representatives. Hannah Wensing — a member of the Unity Ticket — finished fifth.
In the School of Education, Donny Xu ran unopposed and won the seat.
The three College of Engineering seats went to Logan Knochenmus, Selma Fairach and Erin Marshall. Both Fairach and Marshall ran on the Unity ticket.
For Graduate School, Wenda Feng — a Unity ticket member — Laura Downer, Anuj Modi, Chris Unterberger, Jacob Pankratz, Jack Grahek and Robbie Manuel took all seven seats.
The lone seat in the School of Human Ecology went to Crystal Zhao — who ran on the Unity Ticket.
Of the 12 available College of Letters and Science positions, four Unity ticket members — Lennox Owino, Brian Li, Matthew Mitnick and Brandon Springer — claimed seats.
Emma Hoff beat Victoria Isetts to win the School of Nursing and School of Pharmacy seat.
Under the Professional category, Dylan Resch and Travis Gresham were elected. Sebastian Kiehn also won the Special Students seat.
The six open seats on the Student Services Finance Committee, a branch of ASM that any student could run for, went to Tessa Reilly, Xuan Wang, Grace D’Souza, Jared Biddle, Samuel Jorudd — a Unity ticket member — and Vanessa Rooyakkers.
Plans for the Unity ticket began in January, according to campaign manager Adrian Lampron. The group banded together and identified major challenges the UW-Madison campus faces including mental health, transparency and governance, equity on campus and affordable housing.
While Lampron will not be on campus next year, they emphasized the importance of filling ASM with passionate and dedicated student leaders.
“I wanted to make sure that our student government is left in capable and trusting hands, so they can address the big problems we’re facing on our campus right now,” Lampron said.
Mitnick said the group has already developed a series of initiatives that the new student council can act upon right away. One platform encompasses the creation of a neighborhood association to act as an intermediary between students, the university and the city of Madison to ensure fair housing practices.
Equity campaigns entail increasing access to class selection for international students, advancing LGBTQ+ rights such as promoting gender inclusive restrooms and housing as well as expanding University Health Service locations and the number of counselors to better accommodate students with mental health resources.
“I think a big theme of what we’re trying to do here is bring positivity back into politics,” Mitnick said. “We want to be unified where people aren’t just making decisions because they want power … but legitimately make the university better. I think that we have a message that clearly resonated with voters.”
With a strong showing in Wednesday's election, Mitnick said the Unity ticket will seek to bring meaningful change on campus.
“We want to continue the momentum we saw on election night tonight with the vote totals and propel that forward,” Mitnick said.
