On Friday, March 29, the results of the Allegheny Student Government presidential election were released via the ASG Instagram (@alleghenyasg). Ella DeRose, ’27, and Ray Colabawalla, ’25, beat Kaleialoha Froning, ’25, and Sam Ault, ’26, for the respective positions of president and vice president.
“We are individuals that are deeply committed to ASG no matter what capacity,” Colabawalla said in an April 1 interview about the team’s priorities for the coming year.
DeRose has quickly risen through the ranks of ASG in her freshman year at Allegheny. In late February, she made the jump from senator and class president to director of finance alongside Lyndsey Robinson ’24 after the treasury position was reconfigured last month. DeRose is the current treasurer of Orchesis and a member of the sorority Delta Delta Delta. She is a Political Science major with a Spanish minor, according to her candidate biography.
Colabawalla, a junior, has served as Class of 2025 vice president and chief of staff. He is the vice president of the South Asian Student Society, and the House and Grounds Chair of the fraternity Delta Tau Delta. Colabawalla has been part of ASG since his freshman year, and is a political science and economics double major with a minor in communications, according to his campaign biography.
These election results come after a lukewarm start to the presidential race in which ASG decided on Feb. 27 to push back the nomination deadline by two and a half weeks because only one ticket had been filed. Representatives interviewed by The Campus at the time declined to comment on the identities of those on the ballot. Once two tickets had been announced, the election cycle resumed with a presidential debate on March 19 and a voting period that lasted from March 24 to 27 as planned. Election results were released Friday afternoon, later than the expected 9 p.m. on Thursday, March 28.
DeRose and Colabawalla stressed that their decision to run was an easy one.
“I knew that I was interested, having started in Senate, and then moving into cabinet,” DeRose said in an April 1 interview with The Campus. “I think that the skills that Ray and I both have in working together through finance things, we sort of decided, like, ‘Oh, we’re a really good team.’ We work together, we have similar ideas for the future of ASG. And so compiling those ideas wasn’t too hard because they were all like visions that we have for the future of ASG and for our school.”
“We ended up picking our goals and we thought that this is what the student body really cares about, and this is something we can make an active change in,” Colabawalla echoed.
As president and vice president, DeRose and Colabawalla hope to “encourage College-wide access to ASG decisions, meetings, and minutes while supporting regular constituent engagement,” according to their campaign platform. They identify a few action items required to achieve this goal: livestreamed General Assembly sessions, condensing online resources, and a greater ASG presence both online in platforms like Engage and within the student body.
“We plan to build up the online presence of ASG to encourage contact between students and our governing body,” the pair said in a March 22 Q&A with The Campus. “To do so, we plan to make better use of our Engage platform by sharing manageable, concise, and consolidated information that truly reflects the decisions and mission of ASG.”
Improving the ASG finance process has been another key part of the ticket’s election platform, drawing from the strength of DeRose’s current role as co-director of finance. In the same Q&A, DeRose shared a vision for continued refinements to this important position.
“I have begun to draft changes to existing processes that will allow students to access funding more efficiently, while simultaneously referring to historical trends of the treasury and relying on the input of student leaders and members of the committee,” she wrote.
The ticket’s election platform stated that DeRose and Colabawalla intend to “simplify and unify financial forms for Clubs and Organizations.” To do this, they will “consolidate options for budgets/finance requests/reimbursements” and “streamline the process of receiving funding to promote more student-led events on campus.” They plan to provide a workshop session to help club leaders better understand the ins and outs of the finance process.
The team also intends to introduce “an ASG-funded, anonymous mental health support group” that they hope will “provide students with a greater sense of community and support” and “work alongside Allegheny’s existing wellness resources to advocate for attention toward mental health, in and out of the classroom.”
“One cause particularly close to my heart is mental health awareness,” Colabawalla wrote in his candidate biography. “I believe that promoting mental wellness is essential for nurturing a supportive and inclusive campus culture. As Vice President, I am committed to spearheading renewed initiatives in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Wellness Director at Student Life, Josh Guthrie, and organizations like the Allegheny College Health & Wellness Club. Together, we will develop student-driven programs to support one another through the challenges and triumphs of college life.”
DeRose stated in the April 1 interview that clearer communication from ASG will help students overcome the learning curves that stem from changes to Finance.
“I think the biggest challenge with our platform with the changes we want to make will just be educating people,” DeRose said. “I think that [the finance position] has been up in the air, and since the two positions, director of finance and director of treasury have been filled, things have sort of settled down a little bit, but making sure that communication extends across the student body—that’s a priority of ours, and it’s something that needs to happen for ASG to continue functioning the way it’s supposed to. So I think that might be a challenge, but we also know that there’s the want within the student body to have that funding, and to be involved and to have communication with ASG, so I don’t think it’ll be difficult to establish communication.”
“I think one of our main challenges would be changing ASG’s perception to the general student body, and that will happen with results,” Colabawalla said, echoing some of his statements duing the March 19 debate.
“I think it’s important for people to know that we’re students too,” DeRose said. “It’s important that people know that we’re listening to everyone… We want people to know that that’s why we ran for this position… there’s a reason behind creating these changes—it’s so people can be involved and that they feel represented.”