Magdalena Mercado ’26 and Kevin Zheng ’26 were elected Abbot Cluster Co-Presidents
On May 16, each Andover cluster held an election to decide its cluster co-presidents and cluster representatives for the upcoming year. During the 2025-2026 year, the co-presidents are Sami Tokat ’26 and Murathime Daisley ’26 for Pine Knoll (PKN), Kevin Zheng ’26 and Maggie Mercado ’26 for Abbot (ABB), Maya Swanson ’26 and Lily Hall ’26 for West Quad South (WQS), Nafissatou Diagne ’26 and Jackson Slack ’26 for West Quad North (WQN), and Denys Tereshchenko ’26 and Anaya Qamar ’26 for Flagstaff (FLG).
Co-presidents take a leading role in dealing with students undergoing the disciplinary process with their cluster dean and representatives, along with helping organize cluster-sponsored events such as Casino Night, Abbot Dance, and Night on the Knoll. Zheng discusses what he sees as his role in the upcoming year.
“This [will] be my fourth year in ABB, and I’ve got to bring the barracuda to the treehouse, you know. I need to make sure everyone feels good where they’re at and that I make it clear that I’m available to them. I’m always the person you can reach out to. I’ve done a lot of prefecting and, since I lost my best friend this year, I feel like I need to make sure everyone is doing okay,” said Zheng.
Co-presidents operate as a pair with the objective of fostering collaboration and promoting diverse perspectives. Diagne discusses why she chose to run with Slack.
“I ran with Jackson Slack because one, I’ve been in Chase [House] all three years, so I know some people in Chase and Bancroft [Hall], but I wanted someone who had a different experience, and who also appreciated WQN. [Kit] Leckerling, [Dean of WQN Cluster], and the [current] co-presidents worked to help us have fun working on the platforms and help us feel supported. I asked some guys in Bishop [Hall], and I heard that Jackson was interested. I approached him and he said yes,” said Diagne.
The process for running as a cluster co-president is a generally straightforward one. Candidates pick who they run with before submitting their platforms to their cluster deans for review and giving a speech to students. Qamar explained her experience.
“It started out with us declaring that we were running to [Austin] Washington, [Dean of FLG Cluster], right before spring break, and then after that, we came up with a platform, we came up with a speech. There’s an email we sent Dean Washington about all [the] things we have to achieve, our mission, all that kind of stuff. After that, we were initially supposed to give the speeches in late April, but it got postponed due to campus events. Getting delayed meant that I had more chances to go to the munches and talk to people. During that time, I got to connect with a lot of people and meet people that I didn’t know were in [FLG],” said Qamar.
This year’s cluster co-presidents look to the future with hope and with proposed initiatives such as water parks and a fall thrift clothes exchange. Tokat talked about his ambitions for his cluster and the school at large.
“[We really want to] bring the community together. We want to go onto revamping Cluster Olympics so that it’s an event [that] plays a really big part of Andover culture… It can be something that is an Andover tradition for years to come. Along with that we also want to get the Knoll Circle even more active, we want to bring lights there so people can be on the Knoll at night,” said Tokat.
Tokat continued, “There were a couple times this year where the whole cluster was out there and we had a lot of fun so we definitely want to do that and get cushions and bean bags on there along with hammocks and bean bags. We kind of just want to keep bolstering the community we have at PKN. We are one of the clusters that are the most tightly knit, and we want to keep that going.”
