For Mary Oliver and Colin Snyder, both MCAS ’27, dismantling the culture of disconnection between Boston College students, UGBC, and the University administration lies at the heart of their bid for UGBC president and vice president.
“The student body is not empowered, and they are disengaged—because they’re disconnected,” Oliver said.
Oliver and Snyder’s campaign emphasizes structural reform, transparency, and community engagement.
“The cornerstone of our campaign is getting BC’s community and culture to a place where students are much happier and interacting with each other again,” Snyder said.
A Passion for Advocacy
While neither Oliver nor Snyder has experience as an elected official within UGBC, they each explained a deep passion for advocacy that has guided their involvement at BC.
Oliver, born in Dallas, Texas, to a South Sudanese family, spent most of her teenage years living in Washington, D.C.—an environment that she said fostered a passion for politics and grassroots initiatives.
“I have just always grown up in proximity to politics, to conversations about politics, access to my own representatives, being able to be an advocate in that way,” Oliver said. “I was very, very involved in high school and like student protests, grassroots initiatives.”
The political science major and public health minor has continued her advocacy efforts in Chestnut Hill.
As co-director of FACES, BC’s only on-campus anti-racism group, Oliver leads the organization’s public affairs, communications, and first-year mentorship program.
“In my role in FACES, I have to be informed on what the history of BC is in relation to bias-related incidents, AHANA students, queer students, and other marginalized identities,” Oliver said.
Understanding the experiences of these communities, as well as communicating with University administration to advocate for their needs, are skills that will aid her potential role in UGBC, according to Oliver.
Oliver also serves as a resident assistant on College Road and represents her resident community in the Resident Assistant Council.
“When I lived in Williams freshman year, I had a difficult time adjusting,” Oliver said. “I was facing some bias-related incidents that happened with students, and I wasn’t sure if BC was going to be the place for me.”
As an RA, Oliver has worked to instill a culture of respect and connection that she did not experience her freshman year.
“I’m an RA in the same community that I lived in, and the culture is not the same,” Oliver said. “I am very active with my residents. I ensure that that type of hatred and bias doesn’t exist on our floor.”
Oliver also participates in Stride, BC Model United Nations Club, and The Essence Project.
“I think my purpose in life—I don’t even mean this in a cliche way to go off the BC taglines—but it really is being in service to others, but rooted in my experience,” Oliver said.
Snyder, who grew up in the Philadelphia, Pa., area, has directed much of his advocacy efforts to supporting the queer community at BC.
Snyder serves as a general coordinator on the Queer Leadership Council (QLC), a division of UGBC that serves as a “platform for advocacy and community-building” for BC’s LGBTQ+ community, according to the UGBC website.
“I really love my role there, because queer advocacy is very important to me,” Snyder said. “I want to see the queer community here thrive.”
In his role, Snyder plans student events and meets with University administrators to advocate for queer students’ needs.
“Recently, we had meetings with Lynn Walsh-Blair, who’s the outreach coordinator of [University Counseling Services],” Snyder said. “And [we were] sort of talking about how we can make that process more streamlined for queer students and what they’re doing to make sure that specific queer needs in terms of mental health are being met.”
The political science and English double major also heads The Gavel’s Allston-Brighton section.
Launching the Campaign
The ticket made the final decision to run only three weeks ago.
Joel Iglesias Lopez, LSEHD ’27, the campaign’s chief of staff, brought the team together, according to Oliver and Snyder.
“The decision to run was one that was done out of a necessity, and then what came after that was just getting a group of policy advisors together,” Iglesias Lopez said. “Because we knew that we all together had ideas, and we could see a lot of problems and needs from our own personal experiences and from our friends.”
According to Oliver, the team identified the key issue as disconnection between the student body, UGBC, and University leaders.
In particular, Oliver emphasized the need for input from student organizations, which she believes are underrepresented in UGBC.
“Organizations are largely disconnected from UGBC, which does not make sense, because the whole point of this body is to represent and amplify the voices of the student body,” Oliver said. “You can’t do that without the student orgs. They need to be a part of the work.”
The campaign also noted issues of transparency within UGBC and between students and administrators.
“I think I have rarely spoken to the president or vice president of UGBC, if ever,” Snyder said, referencing his role in the QLC. “I have very rarely spoken to Abby Black, who’s the administrator of UGBC, and that’s a problem.”
This lack of transparency has consequences, according to Snyder.
“I think, additionally, that lack of transparency then festers into lack of belief in UGBC and lack of belief in what we’re doing, like that we’re not able to actually deliver for the students,” Snyder said.
Oliver and Snyder’s campaign comes from a place of care, according to its campaign manager, Gabriel Hallberg, MCAS ’26.
“It all comes from that same place of like, there’s so many people on this campus that care about making a change, and it just takes somebody to bring them all together,” Hallberg said.
Vision for BC
Oliver believes her and Snyder’s campaign provides the structural reform that UGBC needs.
“What we’re offering is structural reform, but ultimately it is a participatory governance plan that is contingent on us working together—you, the student body, giving us information, and us creating the spaces to show that we want to seek [the student body] out, and not the other way around,” Oliver said.
Oliver and Snyder’s campaign centers around two key initiatives.
The first is a redirection of the $15,000 currently allocated to an internal UGBC retreat.
According to the campaign’s website, the money will be directed to a fairness-adjusted free home football ticket lottery, a shuttle system to Boston Logan International Airport, a community food relief pantry, and heaters at campus bus stops.
“I was looking at, well, what is going to help students on their day-to-day, and what are they really pushing and seeking for in this community?” Oliver said.
The second is the Student Organization Summit, an event designed to promote collaboration and communication between student organizations and UGBC.
Hallberg believes that Oliver and Snyder will create lasting change in the BC community.
“They want to make the students’ lives better here as soon as they get an office in, like two months, or whatever the turnover is,” Hallberg said. “But they’re also thinking decades from now. They’re thinking about the future.”
Hallberg said that he thinks Oliver and Snyder are the best people to lead UGBC.
“I really believe in these people, and that’s why I do this,” Hallberg said. “Like I’m a senior, I don’t have, like, I’m gonna graduate. But this is really how I see making BC better than I left it: entrusting it to these people.”
In their policy, Oliver and Snyder seek to put the student at the center of UGBC’s operations. Iglesias Lopez sees this as a key trait of their ticket.
“They embody what this university is about,” Iglesias Lopez said. “They embody caring for the whole person. They embody social justice. They embody and live out what it means to make people feel like they belong, what it means to hold everyone with dignity and love for them unconditionally.”
Beyond policy specifics, Oliver and Snyder said that their greatest goal, if elected, is to be a voice for the student body—even, and especially, in the face of opposition.
“It’s about the fact that UGBC, in itself, was intended, and always has been intended, for being representative of the student body,” Oliver said. “Not to appease admin in every single thing that we do, but navigate our path.”
