Drooff and Sands announce last-minute candidacy for Dartmouth Class President and VP

Dartmouth 18’s Else Drooff and Zoë Vala Sands have announced their impromptu decision to run for Dartmouth College Class of 2018 President and Vice President as write-in candidates.

The announcement, made on Facebook two days ago, highlighted the need for more female descriptive representation on campus as “the last three senior class presidents have been men.” Their candidacy speaks to a need to diversify campus leadership and is further reflected in their platform which aims to tackle a larger campus deficiency in this department. It consists of three specific goals, listed by Sands as:

1. Improving support networks for students struggling with mental health challenges.
2. Challenging the “Dartmouth Bubble” and increasing global awareness within the senior class.
3. Striving for a safer, more gender-inclusive, and racially-integrated campus.

“I feel very strongly that mental health needs to be addressed more on this campus,” Drooff, a Geography major and event programmer for Collis After Dark said.

Sands, a Geography-modified-History major, Neuroscience minor, and International Student President, agreed with her fellow candidate and friend. “I feel that things like [mental health] and sexual assault are so ubiquitous on campus, and everyone is quite aware of it, yet people still don’t know how to get the help they need. There is a lot this school can do better to support women who have experienced sexual assault. We want to help change that.”

As two women who speak openly about past experiences with mental health challenges and sexual assaults at Dartmouth, they understand to a personal degree just how important a purposeful change in the current campus climate is. However, they are also very celebratory of and motivated by the numerous amounts of “incredibly amazing and inspiring women” who are present on campus and “those who desire to see change at Dartmouth” in general, and they hope to utilize this already energized force to incite change.

“Integrating the perspectives and goals from our platform into the way we would plan the campus events, choose the speakers, select the films and select the students to participate would be our focus,” Drooff said of one way in which she plans to accomplish their platform goals if elected.

Drooff and Sands also understand that though their two-woman ticket is a rarity, they are far from being entirely-representative of many diverse voices and identities on campus.

“We are both white women, and we know there are minority pieces missing here,” Drooff said. “No two people can represent all identities on campus. We are not championing ourselves as the ‘diverse option,’ but we are championing female empowerment.”

via Drooff’s Facebook

The polls will open on OrgSync at 8 pm on Monday April 17 to 8 pm on Tuesday April 18th. There will be a “write-in” space under Class President and Class VP to manually nominate Drooff and Sands. Voting booths will open in Collis on Tuesday, the 18th as well.

For any further questions regarding how to vote, contact Else Drooff at [email protected]