Robinson Elected SGA President

Last week’s student government elections saw impressive voter turnout. In total, 1,730 students voted, which is about 68 percent of the college’s student body. This is more than double last year’s turnout of around 30 percent, and is 12 percent higher than national turnout for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Nia Robinson ’19 was elected SGA president with almost two-thirds of the votes (1,122), winning a decisive electoral victory over the other two candidates, current SGA speaker Rae Aaron ’19.5 (435) and Charles Rainey ’19 (129). 

“I’d like to thank everyone who voted, whether it was for first or last election,” Robinson said. “I’m so excited to get to work, but please feel free to email with concerns or ideas for the upcoming year!”  

Lynn Travnikova ’20 was elected co-chair of Community Council for next year’s fall term, winning out over current Atwater senator John Gosselin ’20 at 1,035 votes to 516. But Gosselin won an uncontested victory to be co-chair for the spring term.

“I’m looking forward to a lot of fulfilling, hard work to lay the foundations for the Community Council reach its full potential,” Travnikova said. “There’s a gap in communication and coherence on this campus, and I believe the Community Council can work to fill it. John and I are both ambitious and optimistic about the year to come, and I’m sure our teamwork will be constructive.”

In the referendum to decide whether the student body supports the divestment of Middlebury’s endowment from corporations that make use of fossil fuels, the vote was overwhelmingly yes, with almost 80 percent of students voting in favor of divestment.

Turnout for commons senator elections was extremely low, with no election having even eight percent of eligible voters from that commons. The commons elections were done separately from the general election through Google forms due to a technical issue, resulting in low turnout.

Conner Gilbert ’19 was elected Atwater senator, Rehan Zafar ’21 was elected Brainerd senator, William Kelley ’21 was elected Cook senator, Nate Blumenthal ’21.5 was elected Wonnacott senator and Samuel Lyons ’21 was elected Ross senator. All candidates ran uncontested.

In the only contested class senatorial election, current first-year senator John Schurer ’21 and Eun Ho Lee were elected as sophomore senators. Lee won over current first-year senator David Vargas by a slim margin of seven votes.

Chellsa Ferdinand  and current sophomore senator Jack Goldfield were elected as junior senators for the fall term, and current sophomore senator Varsha Vijayakumar and current Wonnacott senator Anthony Salas were elected as junior senators for the spring term. Alexis Lovato and Travis Sanderson were elected as senior senators.