On Monday, April 4, Dickinsonians will have the opportunity to vote for Senate leadership for the 2016-2017 academic year. We urge them to cast their ballots for Savanna Riley ’17 for Student Senate President, and her running mate, Philip Morabito ’17, for Director of Marketing and Public Relations. With six combined years of Senate service, Riley and Morabito have proven to be clear-headed leaders with aspirational but achievable goals for Senate’s 2016-2017 term.

Riley and Mirabito’s voting records as committee members show that they’ve already left an imprint on your Dickinson experience. Riley was part of the Academic Programming and Standards Committee when it voted to change graduation requirements, which included a reduction in the lab science requirement to one course and the addition of an arts requirement. Last year, Riley and Morabito served on Senate’s constitutional redrafting committee, which aimed to make Senate more transparent and accountable to students. More recently, they both voted against a contentious piece of legislation that wanted to cut funding from exclusive clubs (those that require auditions or applications for membership). Both are currently part of a volunteer working group that wants to make the physical education requirement more flexible for students.

Riley and Morabito are each poised to continue affecting important outcomes as Senate leaders, and have already outlined clear action items to bring about their shared goals. They want to revitalize Buzzocracy, an online, campus-based crowd-sourcing platform that had a short life in 2014. They also want to reinstate the Allison Hall Space Committee so that Senate can make Allison Hall a usable, open space for students. Riley and Morabito’s agenda also shows that they can operate with multiple interests at heart – though neither are involved in Greek life, they recognize the need to create more supportive governance structures for Greek organizations.

Riley and Morabito’s action-based messaging is a breath of fresh air, since Senate campaigns usually rely on lofty, abstract goals that are compelling in principle but difficult to achieve in reality. Riley’s opponent for president, James Dappert ’17, possesses three years of senate experience, including one year of executive cabinet service. His platform relies on the irrefutable values of “transparency, funding, and collaboration,” but his platform literature doesn’t articulate clear pathways for implementing his policies.

Dappert would be a competent leader, but Riley would be a disruptive one – something that Senate needs after years of students perceiving it as disempowered. She would also be Senate’s first woman president since 2007, and would offer a vital presence this fall as Senate receives data from the Sexual Misconduct Survey. 2016-2017 will be an important year for Senate, and we hope that Dickinsonians will vote on Monday to let Riley and Morabito lead them through it.