Ma ’15 wins 2015 class presidency in runoff

After runoff elections concluded for all five positions of the freshman class government, USG president Michael Yaroshefsky ’12 announced the winners to the Class of 2015 via email on Friday.

Jon Ma ’15 will serve as president, Samisha Bansal ’15 will serve as vice-president, Cordelia Orillac ’15 will serve as treasurer, Yeri Lee ’15 will serve as secretary and Danny Johnson ’15 will serve as social chair.

Most of the new class officers said they gained experience in student government during high school, and all are ready to jump in and begin planning events for their class right away. The five officers met for the first time on Saturday — just one day after learning of their victories — to brainstorm plans for the coming year.

Ma, who won the first round in a field of nine candidates and then beat Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen ’15 405-185 in the runoff, attributed his victory to the time he spent getting to know members of his class personally.

“I tried to use the campaign to make friends as well as to run,” Ma said. “I had a lot of fun meeting my peers, and it was mutual.”

In addition to building class unity and class identity, Ma said he is committed to planning events that classmates will remember years after graduating. In order to solicit ideas for these events, Ma hopes to implement a Google form system that allows freshmen to suggest possibilities directly to their government.

But though he and his fellow officers have already begun working, Ma said his victory has not quite set in yet.

“It’s still kind of unreal,” Ma said. “I was running against nine other people who were super qualified, too, and everyone campaigned very hard.”

Bansal said she decided to run after speaking with USG members about their experiences in office. She found out she won during a math class, when she had to silence her phone due to all the text messages she received from friends sending their congratulations.

Bansal came in second to Yifan Zhu ’15 in the first round of voting, but won 296-259 in the runoff. She said door-to-door campaigning and her commitment to keeping her campaign promises helped her to victory.

“People are looking for a face they can associate with a name,” Bansal said. “There’s a difference between saying you’re going to do something and then actually doing it, and I’m 100-percent committed to follow through.”

Bansal is also a member of Princeton Bhangra and the Princeton Analytics Group.

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Orillac, who was treasurer of the student government while at high school in Abu Dhabi, said the simplicity of her message served her well in both the first and second rounds of voting: Her posters simply read, “Vote for Cordelia.”

“The thing about being a freshman is you don’t know that many people, and everyone is super qualified,” Orillac said. “Really, it’s just putting your name out there.”

Orillac said she is most excited to work on study breaks and possibly a semiformal for the freshman class. While she said serving as treasurer will be her main commitment, she also hopes to get involved with musical theater and community service on campus.

Meanwhile, Lee — the only officer without high school student government experience — said she is nonetheless qualified by her ability to “get things done.” During freshman week, she organized a freshman flash mob which she said allowed her to meet new people and demonstrate her ability to coordinate events.

She is particularly looking forward to promoting the upcoming Orange and Black Ball, she said.

“That’s going to be our first big event,” Lee said, who is also involved with Princeton Model United Nations Conference, Sinfonia and the Princeton-Trenton Debate Partnership.

“I’d like the freshmen to get into it. If we get really enthusiastic about it, it’ll be easier to carry on this tradition.”

The runoff race for social chair between Johnson and Nabeer Khan ’15 had its fair share of controversy, as Khan was criticized on the blogosphere for an allegedly sexist campaign video he posted on YouTube. The video has since been removed.

However, Johnson attributes his 289-266 victory in the second round to the ideas he conveyed to the freshman class rather than to the criticism of his opponent.

Johnson is also a copy editor for The Daily Princetonian.

“Many of my friends would describe me as a very enthusiastic person, and I’m definitely willing to work hard for the class,” Johnson said, who spent one morning of his campaign standing outside of Wu dining hall and talking to all the freshmen he could find.

He is hoping to plan a freshman beach day at Alexander Beach, complete with a residential college volleyball tournament and Slip ’n Slides. Johnson also plans on organizing a freshman Taste of Prospect night with the eating clubs.

A member of the student government executive board at his high school in Tampa, Fla., Johnson is also a Law and Public Affairs undergraduate associate and a member of the Princeton University Band, International Relations Council, chapel choir and Business Today.