After a campus-wide election, Heider College of Business sophomores Kayman Nixon and Zach Pierce were voted president and executive vice president of Creighton Students Union respectively for 2015.
According to vice president of finance and CSU election commissioner John Greenwood, this year’s election resulted in a record of over 1,900 votes.
Before the election results, former CSU president and Arts & Sciences senior John McCoy gave the 2014 State of the Student address at the Skutt Fireplace. McCoy mentioned the continuing issue of the use of the YikYak app, the various achievements of CSU’s executive staff and board of representatives, and the future goals of CSU.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been made aware of comments [on YikYak] that seem to contradict much of the rest of what I’m going to say tonight,” McCoy said. “CSU stands on cyber harassment have never had the intention of creating an environment of censorship on this campus. I can support the rights of individuals to submit criticisms and comments under the veil of anonymity.
“However, when the comments turn to slander, legal protection vanishes.”
McCoy also addressed a few of the various achievements of CSU staff.
For example, McCoy highlighted Jack Anderson’s work with the Jaywalk for Jesuit Academy, John Greenwood’s efforts to improve the efficiency and transparency in the CSU funding process, and the board of representatives’ work to address campus concerns over the “Be More” marketing campaign, among other achievements.
“I contend that the state of the student at Creighton University is indeed strong and continues to get stronger,” McCoy said. “I hold that when we work together positively as a community, we can achieve much for Creighton, the city of Omaha, the state of Nebraska, the United States of America and the global community.”
After the address, Greenwood announced the 2014-2015 board of representatives as well as the president and vice president.
The representative elects for the 2015 year are as follows: Sydney Fangman from the College of Nursing; Aditi Dinakar, Haley Kavanaugh and Carleton Young from the Heider College of Business; Lulu Alvarez, Hannah Botkin, Christopher Oeresa, Marc Cubrich, Sarah Huddleston, Sara Knowles, Claire Liang, Julia Neppel, Charlie Oertli, Emily Pass, Patricia Nguyen, Trevor Schlecht and Arthur Segismundo from the College of Arts & Sciences.
Arts & Sciences junior Molly Krebs and Arts & Sciences sophomore Meg Maynard were the opposing candidates for the positions of president and vice president respectively.
“They’re going to do wonderful,” Krebs said of Nixon and Pierce. “[I plan to] continue working with [the] administration and my organizations [to promote my platforms].”
Pierce said he was honored to be selected as vice president from the students.
“Our first priority is going to be taking the CSU board of representatives and having them meet with their specific constituents who they are representing so we can set up programs that intermix all the schools so we can kind of help alleviate some of the tension that’s been there right now,” Pierce said.
“The most significant, positive change [I want to enact] is making CSU truly an open- door organization where everyone knows that they need to go there if they have an issue and knowing that we’re the people to talk to and just really providing a positive atmosphere, making CSU an open and great thing that everyone knows and wants to come to,” Pierce said.
Pierce and Nixon both believe the campaigning process gave them valuable learning experiences.
Pierce said he enjoyed learning about the different student organizations on campus while Nixon believes he learned a lot of organizational skills while balancing schoolwork and campaigning.
Nixon said he is very excited to begin his role as president. As his first priority, he wants to promote engagement in student government.
“I really want to get people more excited and involved in CSU,” Nixon said.
“With the representative positions, people didn’t really have to vote for them because we had the perfect [number] of people running for them.”
McCoy said it was bittersweet to leave his position after having it be a large part of his life for two years.
“[This position] has taught me to be confident in what I believe and to be an effective communicator,” he said. “It takes different words and a different tone to communicate the same message to a bunch of different people.”
McCoy feels confident in the potential of the new CSU leaders.
“Zach and Kayman are both great candidates, and Molly and Meg both ran a great campaign, they were both great candidates as well,” he said. “Creighton really couldn’t go wrong.”
Update: Nixon won the election for president by 192 votes and Pierce won the election for executive vice president by 249 votes.
Executive vice president-elect Zach Pierce, executive vice president Jack Anderson, president-elect Kayman Nixon and president John McCoy, from left to right, celebrate after the results were announced following the election