At the beginning of April, spring is in the air on the Fieldston campus as campaign posters, videos, emails and more spread throughout the school. It is election season. Before the beginning of May, the students cast their votes and the new Fieldston Student Government (FSG) co-presidents begin their one-year term. This same short but intense process of campaigning, voting and victory happens annually in our Fieldston community.
While the candidates put their best foot forward, the administration fails to maintain transparency with the student body throughout the election process. Various elements remain a mystery: how the voting actually works, who counts the votes and faculty influence. Due to the lack of clarity about the process, allegations that the “election is rigged” and that “it’s just a popularity contest” echo through the halls when voting time comes around. Nobody knows the truth behind the student body’s biggest annual decision.
The Fieldston student body ranks the candidates in the FSG co-presidential election in mid-April. After about two weeks of hard-core campaigning, the students vote. This year, Nancy Banks sent out an email that contains a link to the Google form which decides it all. Once the voting closes, the team that earns the least first-place votes immediately gets eliminated. From there, the Deans of Student Engagement and the Form V Dean average all of the votes per pair and whoever has the lowest average (closest to one) wins. This voting method seems more time-consuming than necessary and therefore acts as an obstacle because ranking upwards of 17 pairs asks a lot of students at the busiest time of the year.
The candidates launch their campaigns with an email blast to the whole school, announcing their candidacy and initiatives. The email needs to be eye-catching, whether that includes bright colors, a fun theme or exciting photos. If the email seems boring or arrives last in everyone’s inboxes, many students may not be bothered to open it. Candidates compete intensely for students’ attention and more importantly their vote. These emails serve as the candidate’s introduction to the whole school as they attempt to get students’ first impressions roses.
Striking posters hang in the hallways around campus, reminding students of their potential co-presidents and glimpses of their personalities. All aspects of the campaign must stand out or else students will forget the candidates and they will inevitably fall to one of the lower places on their ballot.
FSG elections go beyond just a fun and spirited competition between classmates, they hold meaning in how the following academic year will be shaped. Holding the position of FSG co-president includes more responsibilities than simply smiling, speaking and gift-giving at Founders Day. One needs to embody certain character traits to succeed: organization and communication.
Rashad Randolph, Assistant Principal of Student Life, explains, “You have to be a person who is a good listener to hear the response and feedback from the student body. You have to be able to hear the other side from the administration because you may have an initiative you want to do and the administration will either say we can or can not do it because of xy and z.”
It takes a certain pair to fill the big shoes of FSG co-presidents; the student body tries to find their perfect match almost as if they are Prince Charming tasked with finding their Cinderella. Randolph agrees that students “have to understand that the role is bigger than the person and you are basically at the service of the public, being the student body. You are the voice of the student body and have the ability to come to the administration and voice concerns, wants, desires and hopes of the student body.” Through listening to speeches, reading emails and examining posters, students get a chance to gauge the goals and characteristics of their candidates as they decide who they want to represent them.
The following are the 17 pairs running this year:
Gregory Brooks and Alexa Citron
Zeke Tesler and Ruthie Behrendt
Ellis Lynch-Kahn and Clara Tripp
Nathaniel Schmelkin and Julian Ghiazza
Gideon Bialkin and Samuel Bialkin
Holly Daykin and Dhruv Kapoor
Ellie Usdin and Daniel Blauner
Noor Hassan and Wesley Mitchell
Patrick Kisling and Ava Love
Rachel Stulman and Judah Goren
Dahlia Zemmel and Alexander Hee
Juliette Reed and Owen Larson
Jack Dalven Swidler and Reanna Bilbao
Ishaan Akileswar and Chloe Nam
Chase Shaftel and Zoe Hort
Nathaniel Rozoff and Sylvie Poisson
Marina Tassan-Solet and William Saunders
Unlike in past years when candidates filmed videos to share their ambitions for their potential presidencies, this year, speeches will take place in person at assembly in addition to their videos. Speeches force students to hear why they should vote for certain candidates; no one really watched all of those videos anyway. A speech reveals the nature of the duo behind the email icon and the cut-out heads pasted onto the posters.
Nikki Buchello, Dean of the 2025 graduating class, prefers the idea of speeches on top of videos for her running students this year. She emphasizes “How do you practice commanding a presence if not standing in front of large groups? FSG Presidents need to be in some pretty intense spaces in order for the student body’s voice to be heard…Standing up in front of over 700 people is a completely different experience. It is an integral part of being a leader in my opinion.”
She understands the importance of pushing her students and believes standing in front of the student body does exactly that. Throughout the presidency, the pair must address large crowds. Giving speeches tests their ability as leaders.
Despite all the candidates’ effort to craft and share their visions for the school, students often ignore the hard work and simply vote for their friends or people they know. It seems inevitable that the FSG elections consistently turn into a popularity contest. Of course, a group of students vote for the candidates who say they will make changes they want to see, but an overwhelming amount also vote for their teammate, classmate, best friend, sibling etc.
When asked about voting, eighth grader Ari Odinec stated she “will probably just vote for someone I have heard of or ask my sister.” Students have a lot on their plates, so reading over seventeen long emails can be a daunting task, it seems way simpler to vote for a name you recognize.
Form IV Dean, Vincent Drybala, weighed in on this potential issue: “Most votes are influenced by some level of likability or popularity, but there are also votes that are based on factors that I genuinely think students care about.” In a way, likability and popularity influence all elections, but these two aspects especially contribute to Fieldston’s FSG election decision.
The inclusion of speeches this year may be a way to keep the election from becoming a full-blown popularity contest. In the past, the candidates would have to send out a video to the whole high school, which students most times ignored. But now that the pairs deliver speeches at assembly, a mandatory event for the student body, everyone will have no choice but to listen and learn more about the candidates and their agendas. Then again, seeing the candidates on stage may help people pick who they like the most or match faces to names and they will tune out the actual content of the speeches.
The eighth graders are especially challenged when it comes to voting. This election introduces them into the Upper School’s student body. Most don’t know the candidates personally, can’t compare them to past presidents, and don’t get to hear the in-person speeches. Rachel Shames (Form V) explained, “Usually the 8th graders vote more blindly because they know the least about the Form V students.” The eighth graders make up a fifth of the voters in the FSG presidential election, yet finding meaning in their votes can be difficult. When asked about what she knows, Odinec shared that she doesn’t “know much about the elections or the candidates. No one has really talked to us about it at school. I have just seen some emails that say “vote for so and so.”
Not only do the candidates pay less attention to earning the eighth graders’ votes, but the school also neglects to provide necessary information about the election in general and what the position actually means. A big part of FSG elections is the fact that much of the school knows the candidates from watching them play sports, perform in plays, speak at assemblies and walking by them in the hallways, so the eighth graders lack this aspect of getting to know the candidates: “I don’t have any information about the candidates and definitely don’t have enough to make a decision” Odinec remarked. The lack of information further proves that many, especially eighth graders, either vote completely blind or for a name they recognize; feeling more like a popularity contest than about the content.
This year, 18 pairs hope to earn the position of FSG. The allure of the role is it helps you build strong connections with the administration, provides the opportunity to develop and practice leadership skills and importantly, shape new initiatives and impact student life. Developing the skill sets needed for the jobs starts early on. Candidates make it clear that working as a team and developing a cohesive agenda is time-consuming, it requires multitasking and an ability to work and make connections.
Four things kept surfacing in the conversations with candidates:
1. Trusting your running mate.
2. Having listening skills.
3. Being creative.
4. Not overpromising.
Candidates Zoe Hort and Chase Shaftel have known each other since first grade “and have had each other’s backs ever since.” They feel that their shared past has helped them seamlessly communicate, which “have been pillars for [their] campaign.” Candidates Noor Hassan and Wesley Mitchell think that the best trait one can have as a co-president is “being a good listener…people want to know you’re taking their opinions and ideas into account.” When asked why they want the role of co-Presidents, Mitchell and Hassan shared that “giving back to a community means a lot to us.”
Remy Lipman, current FSG co-president, offers advice to the running mates. Repeatedly, he mentioned having fun is a major part of the process: “Just be as silly as you can.” As to the skepticism around the process being “rigged” and being a “likability” contest, Lipman asserts that the process is not rigged, but also acknowledges that like all political processes, “in some sense it can be about likeability, however, all elections are.”
April showers bring May flowers, but for the Fieldston community, April campaigns bring a new duo to power. Every year, Founders Day marks the passing of the torch, when the whole school gathers to commemorate Fieldston’s beginning, bid farewell to Form VI and welcome the new student leadership. Although Fieldston announces election results a week before this day, students and faculty still sit on the edge of their seats at the Ethical Auditorium to see Lipman and Basner pass on their presidency to the incoming pair.
Many of us are often caught off guard by the elected duo, questioning the election’s credibility. It may be inevitable that we vote for those we feel closest to, after all, it is politics. And, when we see the person we are closest to lose, we will obviously be disappointed leading to spectulative thoughts about the fairness of these elections. But as the ceremony ends, Fieldston students stream out of the building, populate Central Park and celebrate spring’s presence and summer’s approach, happy to be led by their new FSG Presidents, regardless of who they are.
