The results are in and, by a very close margin, Hamline’s next president and vice president of Hamline University Student Council (HUSC) are sophomore Liam Davis Temple and junior Ikram Mohamud. Temple, currently serves as the HUSC Secretary and Mohamud, as the Students Organization Committee Chair, but the recent announcement of their victory now catapults them into their new leadership roles.

“There’s a difference between just talking about what you want to do and having the ability to do it. It’s exciting, we’re excited,” Mohamud said.

Temple echoed this enthusiasm citing one of the pair’s biggest goals in their term.

“The border goal is accessibility because you might not see the big goals getting accomplished but a lot of these things are really long term things you have to change so each administration has to keep working towards it. If we can move even further to HUSC being more accessible, I think that’s the overall goal,” Temple said.

Not only were president and vice president elected last week, but so were the class representatives. One such electee is Dieu Do, a current first-year representative who has been reelected as a sophomore representative.

“I think my number one project is probably working on sustainability…working on getting compost and recycling all around campus,” Do said.

Do also showed enthusiasm about the new president and vice president’s term.

“I think Liam and Ikram are going to be a great team. Individually they’re amazing people; together they’re even better,” Do said.

It is not only those already involved in HUSC who are excited about the election results. Students on campus seemed content with the results.

“I’m happy for them! I think Ikram is a really great person and I think it’s going to go well for her,” first-year Isabelle Wenner said.

However, students on campus are also expecting a lot from Temple and Ikram.

“[I hope they] enhance the community of Hamline through the Hamline values and represent our campus in a positive way,” first-year Autumn Wilkie said.

Other students had different hopes for the elected officials.

“I want to see more actions towards sustainability…if they could work with the sustainability department that’d be amazing,” sophomore Emily Haus said.

Keeping in mind all these improvements students wish to see, one must acknowledge the huge change that was made in this recent election.

Of the 859 students who voted, 777 voted to pass a constitutional amendment proposed by current first-year representative, and elected sophomore representative, Andrew Weston. The amendment added gender identity and expression to qualities about a person for which HUSC cannot discriminate.

“I was very happy…it was an oversight that there wasn’t already the part that Andrew put in,” Temple said.

Mohamud gave greater insight as to why that vote mattered above all others.

“It’s important to vote for your reps and it’s important to vote for the candidates… but moving forward, other people will take those places… I think getting to actually make changes that will permanently get to be in our constitutions and bylaws….  is something we get to leave behind saying we wanted to be more inclusive with HUSC,” Mohamud said.