Ignacio Perez (left) and Andrew Nelson (right) accept their elected positions at the CSU address.

Following her State of the Student Address, the current president of the Creighton Students Union (CSU), College of Arts and Sciences senior Emily Meister, passed the baton after two years serving in the role to election winner Andrew Nelson, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. The winning candidate for executive vice president, Ignacio Perez, a sophomore in the College of Nursing, will proceed College of Arts and Sciences senior Kate Ellis.   

Nelson and Perez both ran unopposed in the election, which was held on Tuesday.  

Nelson, who currently serves as the vice president of programming, campaigned with the slogan “Just leave Creighton better tomorrow than we found it today.”   

Perez is the current speaker for the CSU House of Delegates, and his slogan was “Transparent leadership, intentional relationships, amplified voices and united Creighton.”   

Prior to election, Nelson and Perez participated in the annual CSU debate on Oct. 28. Over the course of the debate, which was moderated by Meister, the candidates discussed their proposed improvements to Creighton’s campus.  

Both the presidential and executive vice presidential candidates agreed that parking is one of the biggest challenges facing campus life for both undergraduate and graduate students. Nelson said a potential solution to the issue is parking delegations.    

“An idea that was sort of put forth in the House of Delegates was class-based parking — having undergraduate or even sophomore-specific lots on campus. Maybe if you live in a certain dorm that’s where you’re delegated to park,” Nelson said.  

Perez agreed that parking is an important issue that needs to be discussed to maintain the unity of undergraduate and graduate populations at Creighton.   

“I think that when we come together and understand each other’s issues, especially with parking on campus, … [we can understand] how the commute may look different for someone living on campus as an undergraduate versus a graduate student,” Perez said.  

Perez also argued that there is a lack of knowledge among the Creighton community regarding construction and updates coming to campus and how that might impact parking. 

“There has been a lot of cross-communication between students and staff about their concerns over the continued development of Creighton,” Perez said. “ … It’s great that we’re continuing to develop new residence halls, new athletic buildings, but where do the majority of students fall into that?”  

Parking isn’t the only issue the candidates addressed. When asked how they will preserve transparency between the CSU administration and the student body, both pointed to social media as a potential outlet for information.   

Perez, in particular, highlighted it as a critical tool for communicating with students.  

“I think that social media is honestly our biggest tool that we have in this generation,” Perez said. “… [Potentially] we could create a social media platform where people could get updates daily about whatever change may be on campus, or maybe weekly, in [a] way that creates a process where students can bring their feedback but also brings solutions, maybe in the centralized Creighton app.”  

The two candidates were also asked to identify what Creighton’s biggest strength is. While Perez said it is optimism, describing Creighton’s enthusiastic minds as its greatest asset, Nelson identified the university’s biggest strength as involvement — but he said that’s both a strength and weakness for the Bluejay student body.   

“We’re at a really strong Jesuit identified university. I think students will take that into consideration almost to a fault,” Nelson said. “They want to be people of service — people who are involved in leadership positions — and I think at times that compromises their ability to be at school, to be students.”    

A week after this debate, students had the chance to vote, despite each candidate running unopposed for their desired positions. After voting closed on Tuesday, the incoming CSU government was announced during the annual State of the Student Address held by the current president.   

Nelson and Perez were announced as the president and executive vice president, respectively; CSU also welcomed Creighton College of Arts and Sciences delegates Brooke Boulden and Oakley Killam, and Heider College of Business delegate Kyle Correra.   

Once she introduced the new staff, Meister continued her address by discussing the CSU’s recent accomplishments. Highlights included the more than $4,000 raised through the Jaywalk event and progress in conversations with campus officials regarding parking and dining.    

Meister also drew attention to vice president of finance, senior College of Business student Payton Brown, for his role in the successful funding of undergraduate clubs and organizations and his role in funding graduate programs.   

She further emphasized the work of the president-elect Nelson, as he has helped host over 75 events for undergraduate students during his time working with CSU. Each event had an average attendance rate of over 100 students.   

Finally, Meister highlighted her own accomplishments, including founding and leading the CSU Presidential Fellows program — an initiative she described as “helping first-semester freshmen on their Ignatian journey at Creighton.”  

In the address that also served as Meister’s farewell, the incumbent president reminisced on the journey that both she and Ellis, the current executive vice president, have been on together since their freshmen year in a heartfelt goodbye. Now, with the elections of the incoming president and executive vice president completed, CSU is continuing on a new journey.