In the 2025 University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Government Association (SGA) Presidential election, juniors Jacob Bleecker and Maggie Redinger are running for president and vice president as write-in candidates.

The pair are write-in candidates, meaning voters must write both of their full names on the ballot in order to vote for their ticket.

Bleecker is majoring in management and economics and Redinger is a public policy major with a minor in women, gender and sexuality studies. The pair are both members of the Commonwealth Honors College (CHC) and served together as president and vice president of House Counsel for the CHC community.

Bleecker, hailing from Sharon, Massachusetts, is an Executive Board member of the McCormack Sports Analytics Club and is a member of WMUA 91.1 FM.

In discussing why running for presidency was important in correlation to his activities on campus, Bleecker explained, “For me, because McCormick Sports Analytics is pretty new, there’s definitely some funding that our club could use, and that when I delve deeper into that problem, it’s an issue that is across the board, and that there needs to be some sort of reform and a better system of transparency, from Student Government to Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) in terms of funding, budget cuts, things of that nature.”

Redinger, from Harvard, Massachusetts, is one of the founders of the Public Policy Student Association. She detailed what she has gained from this position, stating, “This is our first semester being a registered RSO. So, that’s been pretty huge, and that’s definitely given me a lot of experience with the RSO process. And I think being an [Executive Board] member has really been very rewarding, and giving back to the community, and kind of creating a community within the major.”

“I had such a good experience working with [Bleecker] last semester or last year on honors House Counsel. It was a really incredible experience to work with a team to kind of hear the voices of our community and figure out how we, with our allocated budget tools and team, could really help and give back to our community,” Redinger added.

“Neither of us are doing this for our resumes. We’re doing it for service, which is really crucial.”

When asked what they hope to accomplish in office, Bleecker stated, “We agree that we don’t have all the tools right now, and that when we get in office, we’ll learn a lot from the people who are more tenured, and we want to create a strong relationship with those people, and we also want to create a strong relationship with UMass administration.”

They also hope to address the housing crisis at UMass and to leverage their experience in forming and participating in RSO’s to help make the processes easier for students.

The pair also addressed accessibility on campus with personal notes about peers who have struggled on campus being injured or disabled. “The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) codes for a lot of buildings just are not up to date and makes it hard for those students to navigate around campus,” Redinger said.

“We just want every student, whether who they are and their background, anything that they deal with, we want everyone to have fair and equal access to resources on campus and have a good experience being here.”

Bleecker added that they hope to work with the administration to receive assistance with the interests of the students that go beyond supporting athletics, while maintaining UMass’ image as a safe and supportive place.

Additionally, they want to address sustainability on campus, describing a newly devised policy  where students can donate clothing and merchandise from other schools in exchange for new UMass gear, which would help with both school spirit and sustainability.

Redinger explained how her background has given her the skills necessary to pursue this role, saying, “Being a public policy student, I think I have a really good understanding of writing policy, drafting policy and dealing with constituents and knowing how to fulfill constituents needs.”

Bleecker and Redinger added that being in House Counsel demonstrated their strong organizational and strategic thinking skills, while being personal and approachable students who like helping others. They explained that despite their lack of SGA experience, “we care about people and helping people,” Redinger said.

“Going off that, I think House Counsel is really beneficial experience for both of us, in terms of our growth, we were super visible in our community, and took a lot of student surveys over our time in office, and receiving feedback from the student population is something we’re super eager to do,” Bleecker added.

Having a background at the Isenberg School of Management, Bleecker says he can manage his time well and “be in a lot of places at once.”

“As [Redinger] was saying, we’re going to be super visible and super approachable … The communication, if we are in office, between students and their student government will be stronger than it has been,” Bleecker said.

The pair, who met in Wheeler Hall their freshman year, explained their ability to work well with one another, planning events for over 1500 people and managing a budget of $10,000 during their tenure on House Council. They referenced last year’s CHC Block Party, which entailed funding requests and months of planning. “I’m really proud of what we did last year,” Redinger said.

Certificate seating is another issue they hoped to address, adding that the class selection process is often anxiety-provoking for students due to the speed at which classes fill up. They hope to increase access to minors and certificates for students by gathering data about class demand and presenting it to the UMass administration to find ways to open more seats in classes.

They also added that they hope to draw more attention to the humanities, as they believe there are many underrepresented humanities and fine arts RSO’s that they want to bring more funding and attention to.

In terms of what the SGA is currently doing that they hope to continue, Bleecker said, “the way that the current administration has served underrepresented communities is really admirable.”

“For example, the new Food Pantry is something that’s really important. And I recently was talking about the idea that we expand the Food Pantry to the other schools in the Five College Consortium, because right now, it can only operate one day a week.”

They also detailed that they hope to continue the New2U Thrift Store in Hampden Commons. They want to relocate the thrift store to meet students’ needs and have plans to use Commons for other purposes.

“I would second what [Bleecker] just said. I think I’m really proud of the way that they have tackled problems strategically and by implementing community-based situations that really help out students and are like tangible actions, the New2U Thrift and the Food Pantry,” Redinger added.

Bleecker and Redinger met with the current SGA administration and President Colin Humphries, and Bleecker said, “I also appreciate how [Humphries] and the current administration are willing to accept their shortcomings in general. I think humility is really important.”

They stated that they want students to feel free to reach out and voice their opinions openly. “We don’t want to have closed doors,” Bleecker said.

“We’re super approachable and want to advocate for everybody, not just the things that we know we’re seeing right now. People should feel free to communicate with us,” Redinger concluded.

Abby Joyce can be reached at [email protected]