Two young men walk into Lower Dining Hall on a Sunday afternoon. Both are dressed casually, and one wears a hat to cover the hairline he mentions is receding due to the strain of the past few days.
The cause of his stress? UGBC elections.
On March 20, Jack Adams and Chase Gibson, both MCAS ’26, will face off against two other teams for the positions of UGBC president and vice president.
Although neither candidate is currently involved in UGBC, Adams and Gibson set out to construct a campaign focused on addressing the needs of students for years to come.
Adams is an intramural supervisor and referee, assists with coaches’ film for Boston College football, is pursuing an internship outside of BC, and is a resident assistant.
Gibson is a coordinator for campus engagement in the Campus Activities Board, a member of the New England Classic’s executive board, and a student ambassador at the McMullen Museum of Art.
“I think we need an outsider,” Adams said. “We want someone who’s not associated with the mistakes of the past but instead focuses on the solutions of the future.”
Their campaign centers on bridging the gap between UGBC and the student body. Both Adams and Gibson said the organization and its programs currently lack a strong connection to the BC community.
“We want to be more transparent, accessible, and accountable to the student body,” Adams said. “That’s kind of the reason that I ran is I felt like UGBC could be doing a better job to refocus their priorities on what the students actually want, right?”
Originally from Los Angeles, Calif., Adams said he has always been interested in political activism. After volunteering with Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in high school, he decided to major in political science at BC.
But most recently, Adams channeled his activism into a new form: advocating for his family.
Adams and his mother lost their home during the LA fires this January, according to Atticus Crothers, a policy advisor to the Adams-Gibson campaign and MCAS ’26.
Instead of letting the loss deter him, Adams jumped into action, making phone calls to support his family on top of working two jobs at BC and an internship on the side.
“When we got back over winter break, we would always see him,” Crothers said. “He doesn’t live in my house but is over all the time. He would be on the phone for hours a day with insurance companies.”
Crothers believes Adams would bring this same level of commitment to meeting students’ needs as UGBC president.
“I just thought that was really, really admirable,” Crothers said. “I think that’s the kind of leader he could be for UGBC—just a tireless advocate—and I think he’d be a tremendous UGBC president.”
Hailing from halfway across the United States, Gibson grew up in the small town of Tremont, Ill. There, he saw firsthand how communities of any size can be rallied together.
Gibson’s great-grandfather founded one of the last existing full-service gas stations in central Illinois—a testament to the impact of community, for Gibson.
“It’s just two pumps, and there’s usually a guy named Richard out front,” Gibson said. “It’s a very cute kind of setup and everything. They sell tires and get you all that stuff.”
This interest in and focus on community would be part of the reason he’d receive an inquiry about his interest in the UGBC vice presidency a few months into his junior year.
This fall, after a few months of pondering the thought of joining UGBC, Adams picked up the presidential application and called up Gibson.
“I know he’s a hard worker, and I trust him on a lot of issues to make sure that we can collaborate together,” Adams said. “And overall, I just think we’re a great pair.”
After giving it some thought, Gibson decided to join the ticket.
“I figured, I believe in what he wants to do—I’ll do it too,” Gibson said.
Coming back from winter break, the two hit the ground running and set out to solidify their campaign’s platform.
The team honed in on four priorities they believed could address the needs of students and reconnect UGBC with the community at large: increasing accessibility and transparency, founding an LGBTQ+ resource center, offering stronger assistance in the financial aid process, and creating a “one buck” meal plan system.
Adams and Gibson’s first initiative focuses on making UGBC more accessible and transparent by updating the organization’s website to reflect the current status of the Senate and consistently publishing Senate meeting minutes.
The two also aim to push the University to create an LGBTQ+ resource center, an initiative administrators have shot down for over 20 years.
While BC integrated LGBTQ+ resources into the Thea Bowman Ahana and Intercultural Center in 2023, Adams and Gibson believe the University should separate the spaces to hone in on students’ individual needs.
“There’s people of color, and there’s people of LGBTQ+ in that group,” Gibson said. “There might be people of color who identify with both groups, but they don’t share the exact same issues.”
Adams and Gibson also plan to provide more resources for low-income students applying to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
UGBC currently uses part of its budget to hire graduate student assistants. Both Adams and Gibson see this program as an opportunity to provide more assistance for students receiving financial aid.
“We want to devote one of those graduate assistants part-time during FAFSA season and financial aid application season to walk our low-income students or Montserrat students step-by-step through the process to make sure that they’re able to do that,” Adams said.
Another project Adams has his eyes on is creating a single currency for meal plan money and dining dollars.
“The one policy that is kind of my pet project is the one buck policy that we have,” Adams said. “Listen, I know we got Eagle Bucks, we got Dining Bucks, we got Meal Plan Bucks—just make it one form of currency.”
These four key policies are not just a compilation of Adams’ and Gibson’s thoughts, but a collaboration of ideas with other groups on campus.
Anika Obrecht, chief of staff for the campaign and MCAS ’26, said Adams and Gibson spoke directly with organizations across campus including the Asian Caucus and the Black Student Forum.
During these meetings, Adams and Gibson made sure to ask what changes each organization would like to see at BC.
“This isn’t necessarily for endorsements,” Obrecht said. “We’re reaching out to them because we want to hear the things that matter to them.”
Obrecht emphasized that this type of outreach shows how much both candidates care about the needs of fellow students.
“They’re very personable people, but I don’t want to take away from the fact that they are serious and they care,” Obrecht said. “Because I do think that is a misconception about them—that this is something that is a resume builder for them or maybe that it’s a joke that’s gone too far. I don’t think that’s the case.”
Crothers agreed and added that Adams and Gibson’s friendly and sometimes humorous outreach strategies should not overpower the fact that they are focused on addressing student needs.
“I think Jack and Chase have been having a lot of fun with this, and I think that’s good,” Crothers said. “And again, that doesn’t diminish the fact that they’re taking this all extremely seriously and understand that this is just an enormous responsibility that they’re running for, but they’re going to do it in their own way.”
One way Adams and Gibson believe they differ from the other candidates is their willingness to aggressively pursue their goals—even if it means butting heads with administrators.
“We want to be aggressive, and that’s a fact,” Adams said. “We want to get things done. And so, our key component is we’re going to stand up to the administration [and] hold them accountable.”
Win or lose, Adams and Gibson said they both feel very thankful for the opportunities they have been afforded on the campaign trail.
“If anything, even if we lose this campaign, I feel very enriched by the fact that we’ve met so many people, which is so much fun,” Gibson said.
But, of course, winning is the duo’s goal.
“If you’re looking for a change in the way UGBC operates: we’re your ticket,” Adams said.
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