In Reversal, UC VP-Elect Says He Will Not Resign, Is Expected To Assume UC Presidency

UPDATED: December 3, 2013, at 3:12 a.m.

Gus A. Mayopoulos ’15, the Undergraduate Council Vice President-Elect, will not resign as previously planned, he said late Monday night, a move that is expected to elevate him to the UC presidency.

With his running-mate, President-Elect Sam B. Clark ’15, still set on resignation, Mayopoulos will assume the top position at the Council’s Dec. 8 inauguration based on the organization’s succession rules.

Clark could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday night. Mayopoulos confirmed that his former running mate still plans to resign.

With Mayopoulos’s reversal, the UC vice president seat will be vacated immediately after the inauguration, forcing the Council to hold an internal vote to elect a new vice president.

Mayopoulos said Monday night that in the days leading up to the election, he and Clark had decided that the “smartest thing” to do was to resign their positions if elected. However, he continued, soon after the election results were released and the duo announced their intent to resign, Mayopoulos began to change his mind.

“We started a conversation by participating in the election and winning the election, but to ensure that change would happen both in terms of how the UC is seen by students and how the UC deals with administrators would actually be to respect the wishes of the voters and serve,” Mayopoulos said. “My goal is to connect with students in a way that the UC hasn’t done before and try to continue using the same kind of energy Sam and I brought to the campaign, into the UC.”

Running on a satirical platform built on promises that more tomato basil ravioli soup be made available for all meals and thicker toilet paper be provided for students, Clark and Mayopoulos won 43 percent of the vote in the UC presidential election, which took place Nov. 18-21. They defeated two tickets composed of current UC members.

Shortly following the announcement of the results the night of Nov. 21, Clark and Mayopoulos released a statement to the UC Election Commission indicating that they would resign as soon as they were able to do so. Several hours later, Raghuveer said that the Council would proceed with plans to inaugurate them at the Dec. 8th meeting and that the UC would move to an internal election if either they stepped down before the inauguration or afterwards—a plan that was affirmed through legislation proposed during Monday night’s UC meeting.

Although Mayopoulos said that he was aware that presiding over the student government is “a massive job” and that “people on the UC are worried that this will make the UC look like a joke,” he said that he is committed to serving. He explained that he thought that it would have been more of a joke if both he and Clark stepped down, disregarding the will of the voters.

“I am hoping to dispel people’s fears that, ‘Oh, this is just going to be more of a joke,’” Mayopoulos said. “It may be funny, but it won’t be a joke.”

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can reached at steven.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.