The runoff round for the Association of Amherst Students presidential election on Oct. 2 declared Tomi Williams ’16 as the winner by a margin of more than 9 percent.

In order to win the election, a candidate must accrue more than 50 percent of the votes. The first round, which happened on Sept. 23, produced no clear winner. As a result, Peter Crane ’15 and Williams, the two candidates with the highest numbers of votes, advanced to a runoff round.

In the final round of the election, Williams received 405 votes, or 54.58 percent of total votes, and Crane received 337 votes, or 45.42 percent of total votes.

Although he did not win, AAS senator Crane said he remains positive about his involvement in the AAS and the Title IX review committee.

“My main hopes are to keep pressing on changes in the school’s sexual misconduct policies and traditions to improve our community in a holistic way,” Crane said. “Hopefully by the time I leave this great school, it will be a tiny bit more safe, more welcoming and more fun as a result of these changes.”

While the position is not limited to solely fourth-year students, seniors have typically assumed the role of AAS president in the past. Although he is only in his third year at the college, the newly-elected Williams said sees two advantages to having a junior serve as president: continuity and accountability.

“Traditionally, the president is in a constant race against time to get done what they initially promised,” Williams said. “But the reality of the position is that, in order to make real and substantial change — the type of change needed by the AAS — the president must initiate projects that will conceivably take more than a year to properly implement. As a junior … I am not rushed or limited by the one-year barrier and am, therefore, able to thoroughly approach issues facing the AAS and more importantly, the student body.”

“It is important that I constantly communicate with the students — something we have done poorly in the past — in order to maintain trust and transparency,” he added. “If by the end of the year I am still asked, ‘What does the AAS even do?’ then I would not have done well enough at communicating my goals, progress and implementation of initiatives throughout the year.”

Williams could potentially seek re-election in the spring for a second term, but at this time, he has not yet decided to run for a second term. However, “the opportunity to have a two-term presidency could do great things for the AAS and produce some consistency,” said William Gillespie ’15, a friend and supporter of Williams.

The recent elections were yet another example of a widespread phenomenon on campus: the lack of voter participation in AAS elections. Out of 1,339 eligible voters, only 734 students voted in the first round of elections, and 742 voted in the runoff election.

After last spring’s presidential elections resulted in months of complaints and controversy, some senators say that the AAS must work on restoring the community’s faith in student government moving forward.

AAS senator Siraj Sindhu ’17 said the AAS must take a more central role in campus life.

“I recognize that many students enjoy a lived reality that is entirely divorced from the world of the AAS,” Sindhu said. “I think that this is a fault of the position that student government has come to occupy in the Amherst public sphere.”
Sindhu said he believes that at present, the AAS is seen as only one of many extracurricular activities offered on campus, occupying a similar position to groups such as the outing club or Ultimate Frisbee.

“As a democratic body, the AAS must remove itself from that smorgasbord of options which so quickly become discrete social groups and become something else entirely: an inescapable, constantly present group, listening to students’ wants and concerns and working hard to actualize them,” he said.

To bridge the growing gap between the AAS and the student body, Williams believes that eliminating “talk absent of action” is the priority.

“We are currently in a position where only consistent performance and positive action will turn our relationship with the student body back in the right direction,” Williams said. “That being said, the most important way to get the student body to show interest in the AAS is for the AAS to show interest in the student-body … [and] that the AAS is not just a bureaucratic organization but, rather, a group of about 50 students who really care about Amherst and our fellow students.”

Since the AAS presidential election was postponed from last spring until the beginning of this academic year, Williams faces an unusual time crunch as he looks to begin implementing new presidential initiatives. Williams listed “seating one voting student and young alumni member on the Board of Trustees, getting 100 free pages of printing for students and establishing a freshman/upperclassman mentorship program” as his top priorities.

While some of the initiatives are long-term projects and are harder to accomplish than basic agenda items, the new president said he promises the Amherst community that he will “approach each purposefully and address them thoroughly.”