College junior Tori Borlase elected Undergraduate Assembly president by 35 votes

College junior Tori Borlase and College and Wharton junior Janice Owusu will serve as the next president and vice president of the Undergraduate Assembly, respectively, the Nominations & Elections Committee announced Wednesday.

Borlase won with 1373 votes, a 35-vote margin of victory over College and Wharton junior Nikhil Gupta's 1338 votes. Owusu won the vice presidential seat with 1273 votes over Gupta's running mate, College sophomore Gaby Montes, who garnered 1208 votes.

Borlase and Owusu ran on a four-point platform of diversity and community advancement, wellness and mental health, academic reform, and administrative accountability.

During the two debates, Gupta and Borlase agreed on establishing cultural houses on Locust Walk, hiring more diverse Counseling and Psychological Services staff, and bringing the concerns of student groups to administration.

The two candidates, however, clashed in the second debate over strategies to implement these policies. Borlase, who served as the Academic Initiatives Committee director this year, touted her experience organizing the Climate Seminar, where students and faculty asked top administrators questions about Penn’s climate policies. 

Gupta, the UA treasurer this year, responded that a moderated town hall would be less likely to convince Penn to pay Payments In Lieu of Taxes than directly bringing up the issue with President Amy Gutmann and Provost Wendell Pritchett in the UA’s meetings with them.

At Sunday's vice-presidential debate, Montes and Owusu both argued that their experience made them the best choice to lead UA Steering, a committee consisting of representatives from more than 40 student groups.

Montes cited her role as the Reopening and Response Committee director, which she said prepared her to connect Penn Student Government members to appropriate student groups working on related projects. Owusu, who served as UA speaker this year, said she plans to add more student groups to UA Steering and create working groups to allow PSG members and student groups to work together.

The results for the rest of the UA and Class Board elections were also released following the conclusion of the three-day voting period, which began on Monday at 12 a.m. and closed on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

College junior Sam Strickberger will again serve as president of the 2022 Class Board. Wharton sophomore Derek Nhieu, who ran unopposed, will continue to lead the 2023 Class Board. The first-ever 2024 Class Board will be led by College first year Toyosi Abu, who defeated five opponents.

This week's election was Penn's second fully virtual general election, following the fall 2020 election after it was postponed from the spring 2020 semester. The election also marks the first time the Class of 2024 will have a class board and elected seats on the UA, after PSG agreed to cancel new student elections in the fall since the class had not yet stepped foot on campus.