College of DuPage (COD) students will soon have the opportunity to vote for their next campus leadership in the upcoming Student Leadership Council (SLC) elections. The election, scheduled for March 18 and 19, will determine the student trustee and officer positions representing the opinions of more than 20,000 students at the college for the 2026–2027 academic year.
Students elected will join the SLC, a student organization that works to communicate student feedback to college leadership. Members serve on committees across campus, raise student concerns and discuss policies that shape the student experience.
Benjamin Lange, a civic engagement officer at SLC, explained how the council represents student voices across campus.
“The student leadership council is the liaison between the student body and the faculty,” Lange said. “Our main goal is to take in concerns from students about whatever it may be and advocate those concerns to the college-wide committees.”
Students will receive a voting link through their COD Outlook email, where ballots will be distributed via Microsoft Forms. The election is open to all currently enrolled students, including international and fully online students. According to Lange, the process is intentionally designed to make participation simple and accessible for the college’s large and diverse student population.
“It’s just so everyone can access it, [for] students who are fully online, students who may have difficulty getting to campus or they live far away,” Lange said. “We just try and get the ballots to them as easily as possible.”
Students interested in running for positions were able to submit nomination materials earlier in the semester. Candidates were confirmed in early March and are now entering the campaign period before the election. Candidates running for the Student Trustee position are: Danna Gonzalez, Venuka Rajpurohit and Luke Volarevic. The candidates for five Student Leadership Council Officer positions are: Isabella “Luna” Escobar, Danna Gonzalez, Vrunda Patel, Eduardo Contreras, Venuka Rajpurohit, Luke Volarevic and Karolina Vainius.
A candidate forum scheduled for March 12 at 2 p.m. in Student Services Center Room 1103 will give students an opportunity to hear from candidates before voting begins. During the forum, candidates will introduce themselves, share their goals for campus and answer questions from attendees. For students unable to attend in person, the forum will be live-streamed on the COD YouTube channel.
SLC also supports civic engagement efforts on campus through the COD Votes initiative.
Lange said the program works to encourage students to become more informed and involved in both campus and local elections.
“COD Votes is a branch of COD’s Student Leadership Council,” Lange said. “Part of the student council’s mission is to make students more civically engaged, both in student body elections and elections in the greater DuPage County area.”
The initiative focuses on helping students understand the voting process and the issues appearing on ballots, he said. Members provide resources about voter registration, election information and the impact voting can have on issues that affect students.
“It’s an organization dedicated to making sure as many students, staff and faculty at COD are voter ready,” Lange said. “We try to make them aware of upcoming elections and give them tools and resources on how to get registered.”
Despite the importance of student representation, voter turnout in past student council elections has varied widely, with participation sometimes reaching only a few hundred voters.
“Last year there were around 150 to 175 votes counted,” Lange said. “Ideally, we’d want a few thousand votes, but realistically we aim for the high hundreds or low thousands.”
Lange said the college’s size and commuter culture may contribute to lower participation, as many students attend classes and leave campus without engaging in additional activities. Still, he emphasized that student elections remain an important opportunity for students to influence decisions that affect their college experience.
“Voting in these elections is your right and duty as a COD student,” Lange said. “By voting and showing turnout, you show that you see student leaders and understand the work they do for the campus community.”
The upcoming student elections also coincide with local elections taking place across DuPage County. The county’s primary elections are scheduled for March 17, just days before COD students vote for their campus representatives. Lange said these local elections often have a direct impact on residents because they determine officials who make decisions at the county and state level.
“When it comes to these very local elections, you’re voting on people who may have more of a direct impact on you as a citizen of DuPage County than the president or vice president would,” Lange said.
More information about the SLC elections, including candidate details and voting instructions, will be available on the SLC Election website. Lange said students should use resources like TurboVote and Vote411 to prepare for upcoming DuPage county elections.
