This year’s candidate slates for senior class president, STOKED and SUMMIT, aim to deliver on fun as the senior class wraps up its time at Stanford.
The STOKED team consists of candidates Roome Becker ’27, Kelechi Onuoha ’27, Sam Jonker ’27 and Taber Cannon ’27, who is also The Daily’s video managing editor. The SUMMIT team is made up of Mandarava Jamyangling-Kawaguchi ’27, Sam Arias ’27, Yosef Aklilu ’27, Angela Williams ’27 and Puali’i Zidek ’27.
Current members of the junior class will be able to vote by ranked choice for senior class president slates on April 15th and 16th.
The SUMMIT slate plans to achieve its goals through thoughtful organizing and communication based on past event planning experience. “If I had to put [the reason to vote for SUMMIT] in one line, it’s ‘we’re going to take the job seriously,’” said Jamyangling-Kawaguchi. “[The job] is definitely putting on senior nights and having senior formal, but it’s also trying to make community in the last year that we’re here.”
The STOKED team wants to help the grade come together for one last year through meaningful, engaging and fun events. They also look to build on Becker’s experience as a current junior class president.
“Our central idea is: how can we facilitate the process between the bureaucracy of Stanford? Whether that’s dealing with ASSU budgets and the organizing and getting permission to host somewhere, let us worry about that,” Cannon said. “We want to let the seniors just have fun.”
Members of the SUMMIT slate highlighted their past organizational experience as evidence of their qualifications to serve in the role of senior class president. Through their involvement in various campus organizations, they have individually helped organize large campus events like Stanford Powwow, Democracy Day and New Student Orientation (NSO), among others.
The STOKED team mentioned their wide-ranging community membership as an integral part of their fitness for the job. According to the team, these connections increase their accessibility to members of the senior class — a core aspect of their campaign platform. Members of STOKED are involved in Greek life, a comedy sketch group and Sierra Camp, among other activities.
“We’re very involved in a lot of communities on campus, and that gives us a lot of knowledge about what people want, but it also gives us a lot of accessibility in terms of people and visibility around campus,” Jonker said. “It actually enables lots of feedback… which is something we really pride ourselves on and are really happy to acknowledge about this ticket.”
The STOKED team proposed hosting office hours at CoHo to increase interaction between class presidents and members of the senior class.
SUMMIT has suggested multiple events to work towards their goals of senior year community building. Some ideas include alumni dinners titled “Supper + Search” or a senior sunrise on Wilbur Field.
“Freshman year is not the only year you can start to build those connections, make friends, get closer to the people around you,” Aklilu said. “We think senior [year] is also a fantastic time to do that too.”
The STOKED slate also mentions “micro grants” of under $500. These will allow students to present their own ideas for class events and get the finances to make them happen.
“We want to have fun, we want to bring people together, but also fun means something different to everyone,” Cannon said. “What a fun Friday or Saturday night looks like senior year, everyone has their own take on that.”
The SUMMIT team noted that they were the only team that submitted their campaign handbook on time, which they believe illustrates their planning abilities. The STOKED team later submitted their campaign handbook by April 9th.
Both slates recognize the significance of their grade’s last year at Stanford, looking to make it a meaningful one through proposed events and community building activities.