After nearly a week of, quite visible, campaigning a record number of votes are in and the Fanshawe Student Union has not only a new president, but a new supporting cast as well.

Once the polls had closed on Wednesday, March 12, and all 2882 votes were tallied, it was announced that the presidential winner was current vice president of athletics, Jonathan Hillis, who earned 1219 votes.

And the first thing Hillis wants to do as president is sit down with the college and address some of the more pressing of Fanshawe's environmental issues.

“The first thing I want to accomplish as the new president is to work with the college and developing an environmental plan,” Hillis said. “Looking to reducing waste and increasing recycling as well as looking for an environmental footprint plan for reducing carbon emissions.”

And Hillis attributes his win to the work he put in during the campaigning week to how hard he and his supporters worked to answer student's questions and address their needs as part of his platform.

“That's the biggest thing,” Hillis continued. “Getting out there and talking to people, letting them know who you are, what you're about and what you can do for them.”

And vote the students definitely did with more than 2,800 votes cast, which is double the turn out from last year at 1351.

“I think that means that awareness has gone up in the past few years,” commented FSU president, Travis Mazereeuw. “I think it helps that there's been some great campaigning, there were a couple of issues here and there, but there was also some very clever campaigning, it was a great competition.”

But in terms of reaction from the other candidates to Hillis' win, it's not all smiles, handshakes and congratulations.

“Out of all of them I'd hoped that Hillis wouldn't win,” said Michael Dren, whose vote tally left him in third behind both Hillis and Judith Grieve. “He relied totally on his experience of being vp-athletics and some of the tactics he pulled were borderline in his campaign, like setting up a booth outside of the Out Back Shack events and setting his own poll booth and only letting people vote for him.

“Also sending out a mass e-mail to the students and telling them that with the other people who were running you'd have a student increase of fees of $100 was being untruthful about things we didn't even say and unfair to the students.”

And Dren wasn't the only candidate who took exception to some of Hillis' campaigning techniques.

“We kept it very professional and I don't regret anything we did,” Grieve explained about her campaign, which left her second. “We didn't go for the laughs and if that's where we lacked then I'm glad we lost because I think I ran my campaign with a lot of integrity. Jonathan Hillis was reaping his experience all campaign long and to be completely honest I think that's all his campaign was.

“But regardless of the outcome, as long as the students are getting who they voted for, I'm happy.”

“Jonathan has a great business sense and he knows how to get things done.” Mazereeuw said. “I think some of the candidates used the typical approach you see every year about changing the buses. The most common complaints from students are the ones they address, of course those are the ones that are much harder to change, especially in one year.”

Mazereeuw then continued by saying that there's no way of preparing the incumbent president for the upcoming year because it's impossible to predict what the issues will be on a year-to-year basis.

But he did have some advice for Hillis.

“You really need an open mind and to take things with a grain of salt sometimes,” Mazereeuw stressed. “The president really needs to put his own beliefs aside sometimes because what needs to be done isn't always what you believe needs to be done for the betterment of all students.”

The vice president position results saw Rachel Oakes narrowly beat Nick Austin for VP external; Katie Dandeno won the VP internal slot over Rob McGarry; Aysha Dawood won uncontested for VP finance; as did Jeff Burling and Lauren Walton for VP entertainment and athletics respectively.

Here are the complete results:

President
HILLIS, Jonathan		1219
GRIEVE, Judith		805
DREN, Michael		581
WALKER, Chris		170
Spoiled		61
VP Finance (DAWOOD, Aysha)
Yes		2190
No		383
Spoiled		263
VP Internal
DANDENO, Katie		1341
MCGARRY, Rob		1184
Spoiled		311
VP External
OAKES, Rachel		1310
AUSTIN, Nick		1262
Spoiled		264
VP Athletics (WALTON, Lauren)
Yes		2306
No		260
Spoiled		270
VP Entertainment (BURLING, Jeff)
Yes		2342
No		239
Spoiled		255
Board of Governors
SWEET, Jessica		1442
WRIGHT, Sarah		1006
Spoiled		434
Total full time ballots:		2836
Total part time ballots:		46
Total # of ballots:		2882
* Note: Part-time students could only vote in the Board of Governors race