Christine & Cole voted in as presidents in first traditional coed election
The 2021-2022 Student Parliament Leaders are: Cole Anderson ’22, Christine Zhu ’22, Noah David ’22, Delaney Mulqueen ’22, Andrew Rustrian ’22 and Areeshah Farooq ’23.
October 27, 2021
We R finally back—back in person at Riordan, ready for a whole new year of events, opportunities and endless memories to make. A year full of dances, rallies, assemblies, games to be played and plenty of R-Time. But who coordinates these events and is a voice for the student body? The Student Parliament, led by a new set of leaders from the Class of 2022.
On Sept. 10, the election process for the new faces of Student Parliament began. During R Time, the student body gathered in the gym and in the Lindland Theatre. Inside, presidential candidates Cole Anderson ’22, Oisin McClorrey ’22, Christine Zhu ’22, and Sophia Carrasquilla ’22 addressed the crowd and gave their speeches on why they deserve to be elected Student Body President.
After the candidates gave their speeches, the newly appointed Spirit Chairs, Noah David ’22 and Delaney Mulqueen ’22, introduced themselves and hyped up the crowd for the Homecoming Game and Dance that occurred on Sept. 11.
Following them, the newly appointed Event Coordinators, Andrew Rustrian ’22 and Areeshah Farooq ’23 gave details about the events planned for the 2021-2022 school year.
Although both hold different positions, David and Rustrian want to bring back the hype that Riordan’s events and dances held to their name.
“Finally being back from COVID, I feel like the school has lost its energy for school events. I want to bring that back and try
to remind everyone how much fun our school life is,” stated David.
As for the presidential election, Student Activities/House Director Jené Morris addressed the crowd and announced that voting for the new presidents would take place the following week on Tuesday, Sept. 14.
During the Telecast on that day, Student Activities/ House Director Benny Willers ’08 officially opened the polls via a QR Code link. The QR Code led students to a Google poll where users could cast their votes.
The next morning, Anderson and Zhu were declared Co-Student Body Presidents on Crusader Nation. Zhu is the first elected female president and the first international student to hold the position. She is the second female president of Riordan, with last year’s being Gigi DiGiulio ’21.
Zhu has always been into being a leader and leadership since elementary school and had been aiming for the role of president since the beginning of the school year in August and started preparing for the election
prior to even knowing there was an election.
“I just put my real feelings and thoughts as an international student and my hope to serve for the school and hope to make the community more diverse and respectful,” stated Zhu. She even went on to memorizing her speech in hopes to show the student body her raw thoughts and her true self.
As for Anderson, he had been wanting to run since he was in 8th grade and actually wanted to run for president as a freshman but realized he couldn’t. He started drafting a speech and consulted with many Crusader figures, past and present to get more insight on Riordan’s community in order to add to his motivation to make Riordan a better place.
“I started drafting a speech and just thought of things I could do to make our student body better and our school better. I talked to Benny (Willers), Joey Klobas and many of the past presidents to see things I could do to make the school a better place,” stated Anderson.
Both presidents have similar wants and expectations to bring good changes to Riordan this year as presidents. Both want to bring more diversity to the school and make sure the students have a voice and are proud to be Crusaders.
“One thing is that we should develop different cultural appropriations and appreciations and you know Riordan is a diverse community, we have lots of students from different countries, different races and different families and I hope that everyone can contribute and give some ideas on how to make the school year more colorful. I really want every Riordan student to be proud to be a part of the Riordan family,” affirmed Zhu.
Willers expects much from the new student body leaders and will be there to aid them on their journey this year by always being available and by supporting them and standing up for them.
“I expect them to be consistent and dependable, be ready for the challenge, but also ready to be vulnerable because there will be many times they will have to address the entire school. I want them to have a voice, but I also know that they can’t do it alone,” said Willers.
Finally, Willers had some words for the 2021-2022 presidents.
He said, “Cole has been working for this since freshman year. I think he’s ready and well prepared. Christine is our first ever female [international] student body president. But not only has she made history, she had one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard during my time here at Riordan.”