Next year, Uday Singh ’12 will head Student Council as President, accompanied by Vice President Min Jae Yoo ’12 and Executive Secretary Colton Dempsey ’12.
“I want to take student inovation and idea development to another level where any student with any idea who can dream it can see it. Taking it to the point where something like WIFI does not sound ridiculous because…if other places can do it, we can do it. It should be the other way around where they’re saying if Andover is doing it we can do it.”
The polls opened for students to vote on Wednesday following speeches from the three presidential candidates in All School Meeting and closed that night. Mike MacKay ’11, current Student Council President, announced the results in an email to students and faculty on Thursday morning.
In a mission he calls the “5ingh Plan,” Singh intends to carry out five main initiatives next year: expansion of Big Blue Bikes, School-wide WIFI, new Blackboard applications, continuation of AndoverTakeout.com and additional uses for Bluecard. In his position as President, he will also speak to the school at many All School Meetings and moderate Student Council meetings.
Yoo will join Singh as Vice President to help execute Singh’s initiatives as well as contribute his own plans to Student Councils actions. During his campaign, Yoo focused on completing what he called “unfinished business,” projects and ideas proposed by previous student councils and student leaders that were never followed through completely. He said he thinks student council’s projects for next year will incorporate ideas from Singh, Dempsey and himself.
“I know Colton and I will be a great team together because we wrestle together and Uday’s a good kid. We’re definitely going to have a good year,” said Yoo.
Dempsey will complete Student Council’s head leadership team as Executive Secretary. He hopes to bring non-budget projects to Student Council, such as reforming the system for students’ selection of advisers and better new student integration.
“I’m definitely honored and humbled to be in the top three…It’s going to be great working with them and I know we’re going to change the school for the better,” said Dempsey.
“I think the team that is assembled for next year will be a great student council, I think they’ll keep pushing for new developments and keep Andover at the helm of prep school education,” said MacKay. “At the end of the day the titles aren’t that important, it’s what you do with the titles…I think all do some great things.”
“From personal experience it took me two years to form an Abbot Grant around community biking but now we are receiving nearly $11,000 this year. I know that there are will be financial obstacles, but like the saying goes, ‘If there’s a will, there’s a way.’…The budget is currently $0, so I’m sure there will be issues for the new student leaders, but I’m sure they’ll meet that challenge,” said MacKay.
“I’m biased towards community biking so I would love to see an expansion of that and make that an automated system, but I also think Colton’s point about fundraising is extremely important. Funding student council should be at the top of next year’s agenda,” said MacKay.
