Pink prepares for positions

Unite the U candidates and supporters celebrate their sweep of the President, Vice-President, and Treasurer positions during the announcement of the student government election results Thursday afternoon on the Rock. Nick Gangemi // Assistant Photo Editor

Students wearing pink T-shirts huddled on the Rock Thursday afternoon, shedding tears of joy and relief.

The “Unite the U” ticket sported the pink shirts. The candidates for executive office and supporters ran to each other and celebrated their victory.

The newly elected administration will officially transition into office on April 3.

“I am so ecstatic. I’m honored, and I’m humbled by this entire experience,” said Alessandria San Roman, newly elected president for “Unite the U.”

The team’s platform and campaign was centered on the candidates’ friendship. Along with San Roman, William Herrera was elected vice president and Dariel Fagundo was elected treasurer.

San Roman, who has been a part of SG for three years, ran for president because she believes that this goal can be achieved by working with students and administration.

“I wanted to make sure that when I ran, that I had every intention of working to build strong relationships with administration on campus,” she said.

Herrera believes his friendship with San Roman and Fagundo will be key in building a strong community on campus. Herrera is the current speaker for the Senate.

“UM has always been my dream school, and so when the opportunity presented itself to run and it was with Alessandria and Dariel, it was the perfect scenario,” he said.

Unlike Herrera and San Roman, Fagundo had originally not thought about running. He had been involved with Category 5 for two years before joining SG.

When approached with the idea last year, however, Fagundo considered it and ultimately decided to run.

“I decided that if there were any two people which I would do it with, it’d be them and only them,” he said about his fellow executive board members.

Fagundo’s decision to run was based on the first-year student experience. He hopes that he can make sure that first-year students have a positive transition to the university and can provide more resources and opportunities.

The newly-elected executive officers plan to start off their term strong, with a plan and timeline for projects they want to implement on campus.

The first of these projects is “U Outreach,” an initiative created to connect the university community with the Miami area.

“What we’re trying to do with ‘U Outreach’ is create a community dedicated just to reaching out to students on campus, but at the same time while reaching out, we also want to reach out to the greater Miami community and give back,” San Roman said.

In addition, the initiative will connect students on campus to SG, making sure that they are kept updated.

A committee will be attending organizational meetings, interacting with students in the UC breezeway and planning monthly meetings to get student input to improve communication.

“‘U Outreach’ is the very first thing that we want to work on,” San Roman said. “We don’t want to waste any time, we want to build that connect already.”

Future plans also include broadening the food options available at the University Village for students living by that side of campus. The idea is to have an option that is open late at night and to have meals that vary, offering different options from Greek to Oriental food on a daily basis, Fagundo said.

The newly elected members want to partner with students and administration throughout campus as initiatives in the platform begin to be developed.

“I can’t wait to start learning first, we do have to learn from the current executive board, and then we can start doing the things that we want to do,” Herrera said.