Election season is underway at Southern Illinois University, and the race for the next Undergraduate Student Government president is heating up. With incumbent President Penny Bordewick announcing her decision to not seek reelection, two new candidates have stepped up to the line: Lydia Phelps and Phillip Hartke.
The two students announced their campaigns on Monday, March 31, and are set to participate in a presidential forum Wednesday, April 2 at 5 p.m. in the Student Center Mississippi Room. Voting will take place April 8 and 9 on D2L.
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Phelps currently serves as a senator-at-large for USG, and Hartke previously served as USG president.
The candidates spoke with the Daily Egyptian about their platforms over the weekend, discussing initiatives for expanding dining hours and options, resolving funding issues within USG and improving the student experience.
Lydia Phelps: ‘Lifting People. Leading Progress.’
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Phelps is a senior from Marion, Illinois majoring in agriculture business with a minor in pre-law. She is involved in the Illinois Future Farmers of America, Sigma Alpha Sorority and the Agriculture Council Executive Board. She plans to graduate in May 2026 and attend law school after. Phelps has represented students through USG as a senator-at-large for the past two years, a positive experience that she said inspired her to take the next step in running for president.
“USG was really one of the only organizations that I was a part of that allowed me to branch out from my college,” she said. “The College of Ag is very tight-knit, so we go to class together, we work together, we hang out in our free time together, and I absolutely love that about the College of Ag, but USG allowed me to meet friends and really connect with students just across campus that were completely different from my interests, my background and then my future even, so I really liked that aspect of it.
“It also gave me a chance to give back to my community – SIU and our alumni, students, staff, administration; they’ve all afforded me so many opportunities. So just being able to give back through a student-led organization was really just an honor. And so, I want to do that on a larger scale. Senators, they vote, they make a really big impact, but ultimately, the administration in charge kind of leads that impact, and I felt like it was kind of my calling and my duty to see if I had that opportunity.”
Phelps said her platform consists of three main initiatives. The first is continuing and expanding a late night food program. Two weeks ago, USG started Late Nite Food Trucks, a program that brings food trucks to East and West Campus every Thursday from 8 to 10 p.m., after the dining halls close.
“This was something me and Alex Baughman (current senator for the School of Education) started as senators, not with the intent of running a campaign on it,” she said. “It was an issue we saw on campus. Students were getting out of late night classes, out of RSO meetings, out of work, and they were coming back to campus and their dining halls were closed. So we decided to try to find an equitable, cost effective, community-oriented solution to this, and that turned into having a schedule where food trucks come in from our local community…It’s not free food, but it is economically equitable for most students, and at the end of the day, it provides a resource that students currently do not have access to.”
Phelps’ second goal is to streamline the USG funding process, she said. Registered student organizations can request funding from USG, but Phelps said the process is not user-friendly, as the expectations can change when an administration does. She said the current setup can be confusing for RSO leaders, so she wants to change it to something more accessible.
“Instead of following the status quo of something along the lines of ‘we always give this group $1 thousand, so we’ll just give them $1 thousand now,’ we want to change the way we approach that to make sure we are funding programs and opportunities that serve our students,” she said. “We want to promote leadership growth, career success, personal growth. So setting up a system that bases funding requests completely on the merits of the request is really important to us. That way, everyone is having access to funding at an equitable, reasonable, fair manner.”
Phelps said her third primary point is to continue renovating the fourth floor of the Student Center. This was started by Bordewick and her current administration, and Phelps said she is working with the administration to continue the initiative.
“The idea behind the fourth floor renovations is that it is a space for students, led by students,” she said. “We have an interior design class that is completely designing what that fourth floor looks like, so they’re really modeling the fourth floor after the needs of students. We want to make sure that commuters have a space on this campus. We want to make sure that we don’t have space that is going unused that could be used to work for the student.”
Apart from her three main goals, Phelps said her team supports reestablishing Old Greek Road, which she wrote the resolution of support from USG for, as well as the IMAGiNE 2030 plan.
Phelps announced three vice presidents to the Daily Egyptian, a board she said is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. If elected, Cameron McCullough will serve as executive vice president, Nadia Ogiela will serve as vice president of finance and Abigail Tate will serve as vice president of student affairs. On Monday, she announced Alex Baughman will serve as Chief of Staff.
“All three of these members, including myself, are from different schools, different colleges, different umbrellas and RSOs,” she said. “So first, our campaign reaches across campus and understands the expansive reach of students here. We have the clientele on this team to serve and advocate but accurately represent our students.”
Phelps said she hopes the student body recognizes the authenticity of the campaign.
“None of my team members, including myself, are running for a resume builder,” she said. “None of them are running because they have something to prove. This is what they want to do, this is where they want to be, and this is how they want to serve.”
She said the campaign is centered around service, as well as lifting up the student body and leading progress.
“You can’t lead progress without lifting those around you, and that’s our entire goal, and I think that that is what the students of SIU need,” she said.
Phillip Hartke: ‘Let us get to work for you.’
Hartke is a junior from Sidney, Illinois, majoring in industrial management and applied engineering with plans to graduate in May 2026. On campus, he serves as vice president of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is also a volunteer firefighter and said he has experience running social media campaigns.
Hartke said he approaches life with a desire to create positive change, which ultimately led him to pursue his mission in USG.
“In high school, I did a lot of stuff, but I didn’t really care about much. I wasn’t the most involved person. I wasn’t super invested in the world around me. I just kind of took what life had to give me,” he said. “But when my girlfriend at the time, Katey Moore, passed away, it changed my outlook on the world, and I kind of realized that if I wanted the world around me to be good and for the right things to happen, the right people have to make sure that they get done. So when I’ve looked at SIU in the past, it’s always been like, what do we need to improve on, where can we make things better for the people that go here, and who’s in the right position to do that.”
This is Hartke’s third time running for USG President. He served as president for the 2023-2024 school year, but was defeated by Bordewick for the 2024-2025 term.
“I ran and lost last year, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really try again or if I really cared to go through it, because it’s tough,” he said. “It’s not fun. It sucks. It’s taxing on your mind, on your body. But the people on my board, they urged me to give it another try.”
Hartke said he is happier with his board now that he’s ever been. He told the Daily Egyptian that if elected, Adam Loker will serve as executive vice president, Allison Dilallo will serve as vice president of finance, Zuzanna Gaik will serve as vice president of student affairs, King Haynes will serve as chief of staff and Caroline Smith will serve as secretary. He announced three directors to the DE as well – Morgan Evans as director of academic affairs, Henry Smith as director of student wellness and DJ Lovejoy as director of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“I think that every single person on my slate is qualified to run for USG president,” he said. “They are not just experts in their field, they are not a niche pick. All of these people I look up to personally, and I trust them to make the right calls when I’m not involved.”
Mental health is a large focus of Hartke’s platform. During Hartke’s last term as USG president, a resolution was passed supporting mental health days for college students. He also worked with student governments from several Illinois schools to push the initiative as a state government mandate. The bill made it to the state Senate, and Hartke said he was certain it would pass, but it still remains under consideration.
“That’s gonna be a big focus whenever we go back to Springfield next year, to put back the pressure that we had already applied and get all that straightened out,” he said.
Access to dining is another key campaign point. Hartke said he will approach the issue by focusing on extending the dining hall hours, as well as the hours of the food court in the Student Center, which is only open until 3 p.m.
He said he is also focused on reinventing UNIV 101, the Saluki Success course, which is required for all freshmen to help them transition into college.
“When I took it, it was an easy A and I don’t remember doing anything, like genuinely, but it’s got a lot of potential,” he said. “There’s a lot of work already underway with this, but we see a future where it brings energy and engagement to new students. It gets them out of the classroom and it gets them to come out to RSO events. It gets them to get familiar with the amenities on campus. It gets them, like, an extension of the New Students Program’s mission. Because the data shows that students that are engaged, that are participating in campus RSOs and extracurriculars, they stay in school at a way higher rate than others.”
His last main focus points are amending several USG policies. To be eligible to run for president, executive vice president or vice president of finance, it is currently required that candidates must have served in USG for at least one semester or an RSO with over 50 members, according to the 2024-2025 Election Handbook. Hartke said he disagrees with the current requirements and has an open elections standpoint.
“When the Senate gets to decide who can run, they also then by extent, get to decide who can win, and I don’t think that should be the Senate’s decision,” he said. “I think that should be a campus-wide decision of, you know, how the election goes…I think that USG should be open to just about anybody being able to be elected. If you can win an election, you should be able to serve, that kind of thing.”
Additionally, Hartke said his administration would set standards for RSOs requesting funding.
“There’s not enough money there for everybody to get $5 thousand per hearing, but there is enough money to have a set expectation for if you’re going to have this event for this number of people, and you’ve had it before, people will know what to expect when they walk in, and there won’t be any bias in that system,” he said. “It will be made very clear, very reliable, and a consistent force.”
Hartke said he wants to leave SIU a better place than he found it.
“It’s important to me to fight for what I care about. I care about SIU, that’s the fact at the end of the day,” he said. “I want this to be a legacy that we leave for a long time and people can look back and say positive progress was made and we can still feel it. I’d like people to be grateful and have something to be proud of with their time here, and that’s how the rest of my board feels as well. We’d like to do something to be proud of.”
The election for the 2025-26 USG president will run from 6 a.m. on Tuesday, April 8 through 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9.
News editor Carly Gist can be reached at cgist@dailyegyptian.com. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook and Instagram @dailyegyptian.
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