At the CSUN State of the Campus address, CSUN officials announced the election results for the 2021-2022 senate election, where 23 of 25 senate candidates were elected to their respective colleges, leaving two clueless as to who will win. The event was held on Oct. 14 in the Pida Plaza at 5:30 p.m.
Senate candidates waited the full hour to hear the final election results, including candidates from the Lee Business School, Jesse Welsh and Selena Sanchez-Giancola.
Last year, Welsh ran as the only non-incumbent, noting he lost that election and was hoping for a positive result this time around. In other elections, like that of the county vice-chair, he lost.
This three-week election was unlike the previous elections, according to Welsh.
“I got called a Nazi my first day in the party,” said Welsh. “It is so much more vicious than anything on campus.”
This time around, to his knowledge, there were no filed complaints during the election. Student senators were not campaigning against other candidates and no one was attacking senators, said Welsh.
CSUN officials came out of the Student Union with manila envelopes and the results of the elections about 10 minutes before the announcement.
“It makes me so nervous that they know who won, but we [candidates] don’t,” Sanchez-Giancola said. “They’re looking at us like ‘you’re a loser.’”
At 6:30 p.m., CSUN student body president and vice president, Caren Yap and Abraham Lugo prepare the crowd for the results.
The College of Liberal Arts was the first college to be announced. The six session senators were: Sharica Lee, Miguel Soriano Ralston, Zachary Billot, Nour Benjelloun, Nadia Harrara and Maryam Raja as the top-voted candidates.
The Division of Health Sciences is next, to fill four seats. Winners are Madison Hale, Daelani Bradley, Faria Tavaoli, and Kelly Chung with the most votes.
With three seats, Lee Business School students elected Tanvi Bhagat, Jesse Welsh and Selena Sanchez-Giancola in first place.
“Yes! Let’s go,” Welsh shouts from a table. He takes extra breaths of relief in acknowledgment of the elections being over in his favor.
For the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering students elected to fill the three seats: Addison Sorca, Omid Najibzadeh and Andres Sanchez took first place.
Students of the College of Sciences elected to fill in the two seats with Ronee Marshall and Rachael Kim who led in votes.
The Greenspun College of Urban Affairs will have Kevin Martinez and Blanca Peña as its two senators. Peña was the leading candidate.
Students in the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration elected Raquel Rupisan and Luis Placencia with the most votes.
Finally, the College of Fine Arts needed to fill two seats, but could only fill the first place slot, which was with Nathan Bugash. There was a tie for the second place seat and that was between Rafael Canizalez and Amanda Perez.
The College of Liberal Arts received the most votes with 1,084 votes for this college. For the other colleges, the average voter count for the other seven colleges was about 200. According to the UNLV News Center, in fall 2020, there were roughly 31,000 students at the university. UNLV president Keith Whitfield has said this semester that admission is slightly lower than that figure.
