Both phone calls lasted less than two minutes, but the news they brought the Student Government Association's executive slate candidates changed the moods of the rooms where watch parties took place, and the futures of every candidate inside.
With 57 percent of the 2,199 votes casted, the slates got the announcement Monday night that Alliance won the election to be the next slate to lead SGA. Its members, all four of whom have little or no experience in SGA, burst into surprised cheers and applause.
"I feel like I should scream, ‘I'm going to Disney World!'" SGA president-elect Chris Wilkey said. "We weren't expecting to win."
Secretary-elect Brittany Weaver said she felt the hard work of campaigning was worth it.
"It's crazy to think about," she said. "Before I got here, I was like, ‘OK, cool, we've done everything we can do.' I've talked to every person I've seen today … [Now,] it's all paying off."
Wilkey said Alliance's immediate plans are to put together a cabinet that will help it accomplish its platform points. True to its goal of increasing the use and popularity of the Multicultural Center, the slate held its watch party in the Malcolm X Library.
When Velocity learned of its defeat minutes before 7 p.m. at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, its members and supporters slipped into silence.
Someone asked, "Are you serious?" Eventually, the silence slid into consoling applause.
"We were really confident about the race," Velocity presidential candidate Chad Griewank said. "All throughout the race we were confident and up till the moment we got the phone call we were very confident. But it happens; [Alliance] campaigned hard."
Griewank, a junior who has been involved in SGA since his freshman year, said he will finish the term as president pro tempore of the senate and take a few days to consider whether he will continue his senate involvement next year.
Vice-presidential candidate Zeyne Guzeldereli also said he wasn't sure if he would continue as a member of SGA, but said his respect for the organization hasn't faded. He said he had been impressed from the start by Alliance's platform and hopes the slate will be successful in fulfilling it, a sentiment Griewank echoed.
"I really hope that they take everything that they wanted to accomplish and they push to be the best that they can be," Griewank said. "I want them, I'm going to challenge them, to push the organization to succeed even more than in the past years, because that's what we wanted to do, and I'm sure that's exactly what they want to do."
Murmurings of surprise were heard in the Office of Life in the Student Center when the member's of this year's executive slate, Catalyst, and the members of the SGA election board were the first to hear the results of the election.
"Anything that I felt prior to this moment, knowing that my successor is Chris Wilkey, is gone, because I'm going to give him the best transition that I could give," president Kayla Stanton said. "Even though [Wilkey] hasn't had that much SGA experience, I know personally that he's so excited to learn about it and he will pick it up very quickly."
Stanton said the members of her slate have been emphasizing since the day they took office the importance of providing a seamless transition to the next slate, something Stanton doesn't feel Catalyst had. Stanton said SGA is bigger than any slate that governs it, because it's an organization that represents the students and owes them a clean transition.
SGA senator Alyssa France said she believes the transition in the senate will go smoothly enough, though she said she noticed that there was some division among the supporters of the two slates.
"Some [senators] are going to be really happy; some are going to be disappointed," France said, "As far as working with a president who has never been in SGA, a lot of our senators had never been in SGA either, so I think they'll work along just fine."
Alliance said it wants to begin its term by making sure everyone feels involved; Wilkey emphasized the importance of building relationships – the message that was central to his slates campaign.
"We want to build alliances and the relationships across that," Wilkey said. "A lot of times in the past, people came to SGA asking for money. They didn't ask for us to help with the event. We want to make it where people come to ask us if they want to be a part of something so we can help them."
Wilkey said part of Alliance's plan is to get those relationships established during its term so that when its members help the next slate in its transition, the alliances between SGA and other organizations will already be there.
In addition establishing relationships and beautifying the Multicultural Center, treasurer-elect J.P. Bechtel emphasized another of the platform points Alliance will strive to accomplish in the coming year: the community cycles program that would revamp abandoned bikes and allow students to ride them for free.
"No one could ever say they don't know what SGA does if they see a bunch of bikes around campus," Bechtel said. "I think that would have a huge impact."
Weaver said she thinks part of the reason her slate won the election is because it showed voters its members will be committed to serving the student body and SGA on a day-to-day basis. She said Alliance has a "spirit" that helped it engage voters.
"We've been excited the entire time, looking forward to everything," Weaver said. "We weren't fake about anything."
Evie Lichtenwalter and Sharon Hernandez contributed to this story.
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