First-time Senator Aidan Thomas has replaced Gavin Krauciunas as the undergraduate Student Association Senate’s chairperson for this spring semester, with 17 votes out of 19 total during a short election during Wednesday’s Senate meeting.
Krauciunas vacated the position due to his early graduation at the end of the fall semester, ending a history of two back-to-back terms and halfway through a third term in the role.
Thomas ran with Krauciunas in the “Unity4UB” party during the ‘25-26 SA Senate elections and accumulated the most votes out of all 19 candidates in the race with 418.
“I am beyond grateful to have such a great individual take my place,” Krauciunas told The Spectrum in a text message. “He is a very well spoken and responsible individual. He definitely stands on what he says he will accomplish.”
Thomas had run against SA Senator Joshua Brodsky during Wednesday’s election. Three minutes were allotted for each candidate’s speech and approximately five minutes for the Q&A session.
During that short period, Thomas brought a platform of advocacy and unity. Some goals were to expand on communication with various departments across the university, being open in student forums and to “maintain more order and definitely get more done” during Senate meetings.
“There’s a lot of issues on campus that we may not have direct control over, but we are the student advocates,” Thomas said during his speech. “We need to speak on their behalf.”
Thomas had not authored any Senate resolutions throughout the fall semester. He says that the work he has done is not during meetings but rather speaking with students directly.
“You can only do so much in a Senate meeting. You can only approve resolutions. You have a conversation at the end, that’s that,” Thomas told fellow senators. “My primary work that I’ve done to demonstrate that I care about the Senate and the clubs is staying as connected to the student body as I possibly can and voicing up concerns when there are some.”
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
