The class of 2025 elected Anaya Kaul ’25 and Semaya Robinson ’25 to serve on the Undergraduate Council of Students as first-year representatives, UCS President Summer Dai ’22 announced on the steps of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center last night.
About 35% of the class of 2025 — 605 out of 1,724 students — voted in this year’s first-year representative election, a drop from last year’s turnout of 82% of the class of 2024. This year, 6first-years ran for the position, compared to the 12 contenders last year.
UCS first-year representative elections are determined with ranked choice voting, with each voter having the opportunity to rank candidates from one to seven in terms of preference. Kaul and Robinson were elected after receiving the highest number of first-place votes out of the six candidates.
Votes were collected through an online survey emailed to first-years open from Sept. 23 to Sept. 26. The original voting period was pushed back by two days due to technical issues with the survey platform, Dai wrote in a message to The Herald.
Robinson shared both excitement and surprise upon learning that she had been elected to the position.
“I was not expecting this. In my head I feel like I look very unelectable in America,” Robinson said. “I’m a Black, Muslim woman with a niqab on, and I wasn’t really expecting Brown to go for that.”
As first-year representative, Robinson stated that her goal “is to create a community in which everyone has equal opportunities to succeed at Brown and beyond,” according to her campaign materials.
Kaul’s platform also aims to use her position to improve the clarity of University communications for students.
“A lot of people have mixed feelings about how good communication from Brown is, and I want to make sure that people can come to me and know exactly what is going on,” she said.
Both candidates also expressed an interest in working with the student group End Sexual Violence at Brown.
“I really want to make sure their demands are met, so people can feel safe on campus,” Kaul said about the group.
The Class Coordinating Board also announced results for elections held for its class of 2024 and class of 2025 representative positions. CCB, the branch of student government involved with organizing social activities, was given status as a co-equal branch of student government after last year’s spring elections, The Herald previously reported.
Results from the Council’s internal elections were also announced Sunday. Arjun Chopra ’25 will serve as the Undergraduate Finance Board’s first-year representative. Johann Dizon ’24 will serve as UCS-UFB Liaison and Max Karpawich ’23, a member of The Herald’s podcast team, will serve as the UCS Transfer and Resumed Undergraduate Education Representative.
