British Columbia Alpha (UBC) Phi Aaron Bailey has been elected the 106th President of the Alma Mater Society (AMS), the highest student office position at the University of British Columbia.
“I’m pretty excited,” said Bailey. “It’s going to be a very, very good year.”
Bailey, who has been involved with the AMS for over four years now and ran against a candidate with big plans for the society, said that he had been nervous about the results until the last moments of the election.
“My competitor ran an unbelievable campaign,” said Bailey. “She was very grassroots, very good at being person-to-person. I was very impressed by what she did. I was nervous until the very end.”
Bailey’s next steps include going to the Alpha Delta Pi Diamond Ball fundraiser on Saturday and meeting with current president Tanner Bokor on Sunday to begin learning the ropes of the new position. By attending student-organized events, he hopes to put his plans to make UBC and the AMS more inviting to students into action immediately.
“We have a new building opening and, legitimately, next year is going to be the most important year of the AMS in the last 100. If we don’t get people in that building, enjoying themselves, excited, having fun times, we’re going to lose out on the first impression for the next 65 and that’s really what it’s about,” said Bailey. “I’m not going to stop fighting that until the day they take me out of office.”
As a fourth year student at UBC, Brother Bailey has had numerous privileges to work towards the creation of a stronger UBC community. Some of these highlights include:
- President of the Science Undergraduate Society
- Senior Residence Advisor and Senior Campus Tours Ambassador
- UBC Student Senator
- Leader on campus community projects such as the UBC BikeRave and the AMS Microbrewery referendum
