While last year’s Student Government election season was an anomaly, with posters, in-person Democrafest, and casual hallway debates forced to take a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020/2021 iteration straddled a line in between back to normal and last year’s online-adapted version. Some candidates chose to hang posters on the walls, while others took to Instagram to share their voices electronically. Debates were made virtual and optional, and even Democrafest, typically a large outdoor gathering where candidates can give away food and share their platforms, was forced to adapt to a scheduled version where candidates had to visit each advisory for their points to be heard.

Despite the changes, candidates were still able to campaign and make their voices heard by the Upper School community, and the election proceeded forward as planned. After the Presidential speeches in Plenary, students were sent a secure Google Form for them to cast their ballots for the 2021/2022 Cabinet, resulting in junior Eli Moog becoming the next Student Government president of the Upper School.

In the past, Moog has run for several positions, and as a result has gotten a feel for the different types of elections held over the years. “In past years it’s been very normal, just in person, and then last year was just not normal at all, and this year’s a weird in-between, where we have a good percent of the student body in-person but also not,” Moog said. “I think as a candidate it was interesting to go through the normal things you do like the debates, writing the platform, and Democrafest but the fun parts like the food, or the posters, or the banter in the hallways were taken away.”

Current Student Government president and senior Carter Wagner helped run the election this year and managed to see the contrast between this year’s and last year’s fully-online season. “I think it was novel,” Wagner said. “Last year, we had to make the transition to online. And there seemed to be a lot of engagement, a surprising amount of engagement that was unexpected, which was great.”

To allow candidates to have their voices heard, Senate hosted a variety of online debates for each position so the student body could watch and ask questions. “It was definitely hard because it’s harder to know the freshmen or the eighth graders because you really cannot go in the middle school, but I think the debates and the speeches allowed that interaction for the most part and allowed candidates to talk to people,” Moog said.

Despite not running for a position, Wagner noticed a bit of a disconnect with the optional debates held online. “We definitely noticed a bit of debate fatigue,” Wagner said. “I think nothing is going to be able to capture that feeling of being in a room with everyone who you’re talking to and being able to feed off of those people to get your point across.”

Because not everyone in the Upper School was back in person, candidates had to make several changes to reach their audiences. “I think this year it was a little bit difficult with it being hybrid, with people trying to cater to both students who are online and in-person, and splitting their campaign instead of being all or the other,” Wagner said. “The election was so successful and I hope that next year and the year after that they continue getting back to that energy and enthusiasm that comes from everyone being in the building and participating in things like Democrafest and in-person debates.”

Now that Moog has been sworn in, he hopes to implement some plans to improve the Upper School for next year. “So I think that the first priority, the first thing we do, after I get a cabinet appointed, is definitely trying to work on the schedule and see how and where Student Government can come in on that,” Moog said. “I know, like, for instance, I’ve talked to Mr. Bigelow, he mentioned how his advisory loves that they can go out to eat, and then maybe in a post-pandemic world we can have one of those advisories be next to lunch period so we can do that.”

Junior and Executive Advisor Ivy Jacobs also has some plans she hopes to implement next year with the student body. “As Executive Advisor, my main goal next year will be reworking the Small Groups system,” Jacobs said. “I hope to adapt the system to create personalized conversations tailored to the wants and needs of the student body. Real change can be made as a result of these conversations.”

While there was a divide with a lack of large, in-person gatherings, Jacobs hopes to find a way to safely bring these back to Student Government. “I believe that forums like town halls have not been utilized effectively by Cabinet, turning them into, not always so bad, study halls and caf visits, but without providing engaging opportunities for conversation in the high school,” Jacobs said. “I hope to be able to engage the student body in in-person town halls, in order to get feedback, collect opinions, and hear directly from the student body.”

As his term as President ends, Wagner reflects on the fears he still has for Student Government in the fall after the half-online, half-in-person year the school recently had. “My biggest fear is that because we’ve had that gap, that year of freshmen who haven’t experienced what it truly is like, sophomores haven’t had a real Democrafest since eighth grade, freshmen haven’t been in plenary, so there’s definitely going to be a lot of teaching that needs to occur,” Wagner said. “My fear is that, those traditions that make Student Government fun, I hope that it’s not too difficult to go back into those, and I hope that anyone on Cabinet is able to revitalize those and add their own new things and create broader inclusion.”

Given the new administrative changes that will take place this summer, Moog hopes to use this transition to solidify Student Government. “I think also kind of off of it, there’s gonna be two new administrative members, to see how we can work with them to establish Student Government, and then also to make sure that they kind of understand what Student Government is, and that hopefully, that will allow us to get along,” Moog said.