Student Congress will be under new leadership next year as the administration of Benjamin Eveslage and Elisa Malile has decided not to run for re-election.

Malile, a senior sociology major, explained the decision.

“I’ve gotten some opportunities and Ben’s gotten some opportunities so we think that it’s better that we just step down and let someone else run,” she said.

Eveslage wants to finish strong.

“(It’s) also just to lead our executive board through the rest of the semester strongly with the initiatives we do have planned so we’re not distracted by running again,” the junior international relations major said.

OUSC has three presidential tickets and 35 legislators on this year’s ballot. One presidential ticket and 23 legislators will be selected.

The candidates for president and vice president of OUSC are James Sklar and Thomas Chen, Samantha Wolf and Robbie Williford and Louis Fairman and Jacob Bogarin.

Sklar, a sophomore majoring in political science, said that if elected, he would like to build a community feel at OU.

“We want to improve the experiences that students get while going to OU,” he said.  “We want to bring that experience not to just students that live on-campus but we want to bring that experience to commuters as well.”

Some of his planned initiatives are to bring back the free Scantron program, renovate the residence hall basketball and volleyball courts and putting a Grizz Express in Vandenberg Hall.

Robbie Williford explained why he is running as Samantha Wolf’s vice presidential nominee.

“We both want to do everything that we can for the students, commuters, on-campus residents, Greek life students, athletes or just regular students who go to Oakland and want to see a difference being made,” he said.

Williford and Wolf want to facilitate better communication between students and the administration. They plan to have meetings with university leadership regarding what can be done about the parking situation on campus.

Candidates Louis Fairman and Jacob Bogarin could not be reached at press time.

Contact staff reporter Kevin Graham via email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @KevinGraham88