VIDEO: STUDENT SENATE ELECTION RESULTS

NATHAN STEPHANY, KVN DIRECTOR

After a tense race, the Wartburg student body has chosen their next presidential team.

The ticket of Yusra Malik and Emma Williams proved victorious in the student senate elections for the 2020-2021 school year, bringing an immediate sense of excitement to the pair.

“It was excitement, but also nerves, all at once,” said vice-president elect Williams. “And than after we got the news, it was just pure excitement. Like a sense of relief, almost, that all the hard work we put in ended up with the outcome that we were hoping for.”

The pair defeated Darren Kilpatrick and Brett Kelting with 61% of the presidential vote. Also victorious were Grace Greving and Jordan Flaherty, both of whom were up for re-election and running unopposed. For vice-president elect Emma Williams, this has been a long time dream of hers that didn’t seem like a reality until she met now president elect Yusra Malik.

“For me, I’ve thought about running, you know, while I’ve been on campus since my first year,” said Williams. “But it wasn’t realistic until I knew who I wanted to run with. Because for me, it was more about who I would run with, how we would work together, and going forward, you know, how we would engage with the student body. I wouldn’t just settle to run with anybody, and I felt 100% comfortable running with Yusra.”

The duo hopes their differing styles will translate will to running the student body in the coming year, as they approach the platforms they ran on, including improved communications on campus and student safety.

“And from there, Yusra also, just her thought process and the way she thinks about things, it’s different than the way I approach things, and I think that balance is beneficial,” said Williams. “And throughout the campaign, too, we both were so open and willing to reaching out people, answering these conversations, and I think that essentially was really what resulted in our success with our reach of campus.”

Malik and Williams will have some time to plan before they officially take their positions in August.