JONAH LAGRANGE/THE CREIGHTONIAN

Students Union annoucnces Sai Alavala as president and Brooke Boulden as vice-president.

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, the Creighton Students Union Address was held at 8 p.m. at the stairs at the V.J and Angela Skutt Student Center to a crowd of hopeful onlookers ready for change.  

While the political landscape on the national scale was feeling change from waves of all sorts of different colors, inside the student center and safely tucked away from the rain, Creighton Student Union President Andrew Nelson gave his farewell speech before welcoming the new presidency onboard.  

After the speech ended, the results were turned over to Mathew Parker, the vice president for finance and election commissioner. For the House of Delegates, he announced that Lauren Geier was the At-Large Delegate, Caleb Trautman will be the Heider College of Business Delegate, and the College of Arts and Sciences Delegates will be Lily Launsbach and Slyvia Unverzagt. 

The CSU president will be Sai Alavala, and the Executive Vice-President will be Brooke Boulden. Each of them have experience within CSU, with Alavala serving as the vice president for programming and Boulden serving in the House of Delegates. Both ran unopposed.  

Nelson’s speech began with him discussing everything that’s been accomplished during his 2026 term. 

He and Ignacio Perez, the current CSU vice president, began the year by collecting data and listening to student voices.  

“We hosted tabling events, town halls, questionnaires, surveying across campus. We went to summer preview and talked to incoming students, incoming first years on what they wanted to see in student government,” Nelson began.  

The majority of his review focused on the results of those surveys. One of the things that students were saying, he said, was that dining needed to work for the students and not the other way around.  

“We began initiatives to change these dining locations and answer student feedback on dining as a whole,” he said, referring to the Wareham Court Dining Surveys, something that’s being worked on by both himself and the new presidency for CSU.  

Nelson also touched on the ever-present parking issues that have scorned campus since the major construction projects started. It’s a problem that’s still being worked on, he said, but CSU was able to work with administration to “make some edits” based on their feedback to allow for student parking to be expanded.  

One of his personal projects was to unite the graduate and undergraduate communities at Creighton, and he reported that he was successful in that regard, citing cross-campus discussions about what it means to be a Creighton student.  

His final report on the work that CSU accomplished was for the clubs and organizations here at Creighton. CSU raised over 200,000$ for student organizations, he said.  

“This is more than just a number. This is club trips, guest speakers. This represents new cultural celebration service projects and just thousands of moments that really amplify every person’s Creighton experience,” Nelson said. 

Both CSU President-Elect Alavala and newly elected VP Boulden want to continue the work that Nelson and Ignacio started in the previous year. Alavala is focused on improving the dining experiences. After the speech was finished, he laid out some specific policies he’s opening to enact to improve dining.  

“Some ideas I want to explore include allowing unused dining dollars to roll over between semesters, expanding meal options to places like Wareham Court, reevaluating the additional two-dollar charge at Harper and potentially extending dining hours for students with later classes or commitments,” Alavala said. 

On the topic of student transportation and parking needs, Alavala laid out another specific policy goal.  

“One initiative we’re currently exploring right now, but haven’t confirmed, is a subsidized Uber Rideshare program that would provide students with more affordable and reliable transportation during late night hours,” he said.   

Vice President-Elect Boulden is focused on sustainability policy improvement herself, as that was the legislation she helped pass during her time in the House of Delegates.  

“I’ve been working with the Green Jays and the AGCU Laudato Si legislation,” she explained, which is legislation that has the goal of helping Creighton reach carbon neutrality. She’s hoping to collaborate with the student body and the house of delegates to pass this legislation.   

“I hope to build a community where people feel encouraged to like speak up for the students and talk with administrators,” Boulden remarked, echoing an important refrain from Nelson’s address. 

“CSU is not an office,” Nelon said. “We’re not just an Executive Committee. We’re an amplified voice of the student body.”  

Both Alavala and Boulden hope to both continue the legacy of Nelson and Perez and forge new paths all the same – and Creighton University will be changed for it.