Student body president candidates Jack Wisdom ’26 and Sabik Jawad ’26 and student body vice president candidates Favion Harvard ’26 and Harper Richardson ’27 spoke about student rights, Dartmouth Dining oversight and institutional reform within Dartmouth Student Government at an April 27 debate ahead of the DSG election. Wisdom and Harvard are running on one ticket, while Jawad and Richardson are running on the other.
During the debate, which was moderated by The Dartmouth’s Kent Friel ’26, the candidates were often in agreement over specific problems on campus, such as Dartmouth Dining Services and support for international students, but differentiated themselves by their varied approaches to resolving each issue.
Wisdom said he was motivated to run for president because he noticed “a lot of inefficiencies [and] a lot of problems” in DSG during his three years as a senator.
“What differentiates us is our student government reform, where we want to refresh our Constitution, consolidate our executive board and restructure our committees,” Wisdom said.
Jawad has also served in DSG for three years. He began to consider running for president after the arrest of 89 individuals at a pro-Palestinian protest in May 2024 because he believes DSG’s response to the events was “disappointing and embarrassing.”
“That demonstrated to the rest of campus the lack of transparency that [DSG] has and that we are not bold enough to stand up to administration when it matters,” Jawad said. “I think that’s how we particularly differ from Jack and Favion’s campaign.”
The vice presidential candidates also spoke about their platforms. Harvard, who has also served in DSG for three years, said he wants to get more people involved with student government.
Richardson, who is the only candidate without prior experience in DSG, said she believes her limited experience in DSG makes her an “ideal” candidate because she has been “a part of as many communities as [she] can” and been an “activist” within those communities at Dartmouth.
Friel asked the candidates to explain their top issues and their plans to tackle them. Both tickets emphasized the importance of student rights and dissatisfaction with Dartmouth Dining.
Jawad explained that as an international student, he feels “terrified” of what the future may hold. He criticized Dartmouth’s administration and the DSG for not “stepping up” for international students. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has revoked student visas across the country, which affected two Dartmouth graduate students who lost their F-1 status.
“What I want to do is help marginalized communities through increasing emergency resources for international students, publishing Know Your Rights resources that we’ve already been doing as part of our campaign and also holding [the] administration accountable when they fail to protect us,” Jawad said.
Richardson added that she believes that DSG can make “big changes” to support student liberties, such as adopting the American Civil Liberties Union’s firewall for freedom, a guide to using the court system to resist the Trump administration on a local level.
Wisdom said his platform aims to support international students through enacting institutional change within DSG.
“Yelling frustrations louder is what our student government has done a lot, but that doesn’t automatically lead to change,” Wisdom said. “Real progress starts within student government, and that comes from student government reform.”
Both tickets also spoke about increased DSG oversight over Dartmouth Dining, which has implemented changes to dining locations with mixed feedback in the past few months. Jawad said his platform will seek to gain “leverage” in discussions with Dartmouth Dining.
“[Dartmouth Dining] director Plodzik told us that he is willing to open Collis on the weekend, if all [students] shift to a mandatory Ivy Unlimited plan,” Jawad said. “That is not the type of deal-making we want to be doing, and we are willing to fight tooth and nail to get those things done.”
Richardson, who is a member of the Student Workers Collective at Dartmouth, added that she believes DSG needs to support the union to negotiate with Dartmouth Dining.
“What we need to do is say, as a student government, that we’re behind the union and put our full support behind the union because the union is the only one that has real leverage to deal with DDS,” Richardson said.
By contrast, Wisdom and Harvard emphasized creating positive relationships with the administration and Dartmouth Dining. Wisdom said he has been trying to “repair” DSG’s relationship with Dartmouth Dining.
“I want to point out that Jon Plodzik resigning is … not going to fix all the issues,” Wisdom said.
Both presidential tickets criticized the current structure of DSG. Wisdom and Harvard explained their plan to propose constitutional amendments that “consolidate” the number of executives and break large committees into smaller task forces.
“We have student government associations in high school that are more advanced than our student government with parliamentary procedures and motion guidelines,” Wisdom said.
Meanwhile, Jawad and Richardson focused on “transparency” issues within DSG, such as the failure of an amendment that would require senators to consent to being recorded by The Dartmouth at DSG’s weekly meetings.
“Jack seems to believe that the issue in DSG is with efficiency and we need some kind of a DOGE-like approach to solving DSG’s problems,” Jawad said. “The approach we need is to demand our seat at the table, whether it be dining and reversing automation, or whether it be student rights and demanding [College President Sian Leah] Beilock make a genuine effort to stand up for all of our students.”
