The promise "to get down and dirty" to organize student government was not enough to sway the Saint Mary's student body to elect Amanda Shropshire and Annie Davis as their student body president and vice president in Monday's election.
Their weeklong campaign filled with promises to increase fundraising and revamp Board of Governance meetings came to a disappointing conclusion on Tuesday morning when the two were notified they had lost to Susan McIlduff and Maggie Siefert by a mere 51 votes.
"I hope they can make a significant change in student government," Davis said. "No one really knows what is going on in student government right now. It is going to be a big task to get involved with the student body and take care of stuff that is not getting done right now."
Shropshire felt similarly and said she hopes McIlduff and Siefert will work on "everything they haven't accomplished until now."
Davis said she wished they had explained their presidential promises in more detail during campaigning, while Shropshire said she regrets not being able to visit students in their dorm rooms during the week. She said that they were unable to make weekday visits due to Davis' busy schedule while attempting to qualify for nationals in figure skating.
Shropshire and Davis, however, were able to engage in door-to-door campaigning during the weekend, an experience Davis said she valued for all the feedback she obtained from concerned students.
"I am still going to bring [their concerns] to the table," she said. "While campaigning, we got our voices heard and became more aware of how people now think of [BOG] in a negative light, and that needs to change. Now we have feedback, we hear what [students] are saying, and that is what makes a legislation so successful. We have [heard] the complaints, and now we can take of them."
After promising to tighten the methods of the sometimes-inefficient Board of Governance meetings and serving on both McIlduff's and Siefert's past student government boards, Davis said "it will be interesting to see how [the new president and vice president] to work together and run BOG next year."
Davis said she plans to remain highly involved within student government as admissions commissioner and looks forward to working with the College's new administration.
Regardless of the disappointing loss, she is still considering running for student body president again next year.
"[Running for president] is an opportunity that many people never get. Running again would require a lot of work and a lot of time. Right now I need to finish this year and see how [the McIlduff] administration is next year and how I fit in there."
Shropshire will finish her term as Student Diversity Board president - a position that she has reinvented through her organization of the College's first-ever diversity conference, an increased campus-wide diversity awareness and maintenance of traditional SDB events.
Despite her success as SDB president, she said she will not run for a second term in the position and is not sure where she sees herself in the future of student government.
"The only thing that everyone keeps saying to me is the best candidate doesn't always win, and that is how I have to keep looking at it," she said.
