On April 22 and 23, Dartmouth students elected Chukwuka Odigbo ’25 and Jon Pazen ’25 as student body president and student body vice president, respectively, according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. The pair defeated Matthew Kim ’25 and Alejandra Carrasco Alayo ’25 in the first contested election in three years.
In the presidential election, Odigbo received 1,162 votes while Kim received 762. Pazen and Carrasco Alayo earned 1,056 and 655 votes for vice president, respectively.
Jon Pazen is the strategy director for The Dartmouth’s business staff and is not involved in editorial production.
Students cast 1,945 ballots in the presidential election and 2,016 ballots total, according to past reporting by The Dartmouth. The former marks an increase of approximately 58% from last year’s presidential election and 33% from the 2022 race. Odigbo said he “really appreciates” the high voter turnout this year.
“If more and more students are getting involved in DSG, and more and more students are coming out to vote, … I think it says good things about where DSG exists in the minds of students,” he said.
Odigbo and Pazen’s platform emphasized opening Collis Cafe — which currently operates from Monday to Friday — on weekends, implementing termly wellness days and adding a student to the College’s Board of Trustees, according to Odigbo.
“I think some of the issues that are top for us are things that have bothered students for some time now,” Odigbo said.
Both presidential and vice presidential pairs announced their campaigns in emails to campus. Odigbo and Pazen sent their announcement on April 14 — the first day of campaigning — while Kim and Carrasco Alayo sent their email the next day. During the campaigning period — which lasted until April 22 — both pairs hosted campaign events with free food, according to campus-wide emails from the candidates.
Odigbo and Pazen started to plan their campaign at the end of the fall term, according to Odigbo. The two drafted a “comprehensive” strategy and laid out a long-term timeline that focused on having conversations with students, Odigbo added.
Pazen said he and Odigbo prioritized using language that reaches students “where they’re at.” He said DSG representatives talk in a “very specific way,” leading the pair to seek more accessible wording.
“How do we make [our campaign] so that individuals can pick up [our] platform and understand it?” Pazen asked.
The campaign also involved a presidential and vice presidential debate on April 21, moderated by The Dartmouth and co-hosted by the Elections Planning and Advisory Committee. During the debate, the pairs discussed a dining plan proposed in an April 7 DSG meeting, opening Collis Cafe on the weekends and improved mental health support, among other issues. Although the candidates were not “daggers drawn” in opposition, Odigbo and Kim emphasized different priorities, according to Odigbo.
“Many of our goals are very institutional and they are very campus-wide,” Odigbo said. “We pointed out during the debate [that] our structure for wellness days has to be [institution-wide] and [the days have] to be baked into the school calendar.”
Both Odigbo and Kim, however, said they wished the debate had allowed more flexibility in response order. At the start of the debate, candidates flipped a coin to decide who would speak first and who would speak second. This structure did not give Kim and Carrasco Alayo sufficient opportunity to respond to Odigbo and Pazen, according to Odigbo and Kim.
“[Pazen and I] would respond to the same question, but also in some way respond to what [Kim and Carrasco Alayo] said,” Odigbo said. “I wish there was an opportunity for the other campaign to [respond] after we had gone.”
Kim said he was “disappointed” with the debate, which he thought was “unfairly structured.”
“The main reason for that was that I spoke first for every single question,” he said.
In addition to the debate, candidates also spread their messages through social media. Candidates posted profiles of the candidates and event timelines. While Carrasco Alayo said EPAC was “pretty good” about monitoring Instagram, she said there were still “targeted” comments on the anonymous social media platform Fizz. In turn, she said Fizz was an “emotional burden” throughout the campaign process.
“[Comments on Fizz are] very personal, very targeted — which we try not to take seriously, but it does negatively affect us,” Carrasco Alayo said.
Kim and Carrasco Alayo, who are both DSG senators, said they do not yet know if they will be involved with DSG next year.
“It is a tricky process,” Kim said. “Currently, we don’t have a role in Student Government, so [we have to start] thinking about what sort of roles we create for ourselves.”
Students also elected their class council executives and general house senators. The Class of 2025 elected Benjamin Casanova Shiel ’25, Maeve Conneely ’25 and Sadie Schier ’25 as their class council executives. Jack Coleman ’26, Elliott Ecklund ’26, Brooke Kries ’26, Ethan Lieberman ’26 and Elizabeth Volynets ’26 will represent the Class of 2026 as class council executives. Miriam Bowman ’27, Ajayda Griffith ’27, Samuel Korff ’27 and Gemma Stowell ’27 will represent the Class of 2027.
Students elected Eunice Antwi ’25 as senior class president and Matt Jachim-Gallagher ’25 as senior class vice president, with 284 and 263 votes, respectively.
