“I’ve been in student council from the start of fifth grade, I was elected the vice president of my fifth grade class ... carried on into junior high and then elected president of National Honor Society, and senior class vice president as well,” Santavicca said. “I’ve had a track record of always being trusted by my peers to serve them.”

An enthusiastic reader and self-proclaimed Apple fanatic, Santavicca said his constant involvement springs from a desire to work with others as well as the high ambitions and goals he has for himself, which have been with him from a young age.

“In elementary school, you’d think for an elementary school student you’d go back to home, maybe take a nap, play with some toys, but no, a few of us would always go back and just think about ideas,” Santavicca said. “One of the things we wanted to do was bring a concert to our elementary school.”

Santavicca joined freshman class council his first year at MSU, later leaving to join ASMSU’s staff as an intern for the vice president of academic affairs position, which he would assume during his sophomore year. Santavicca said his decision to run for the presidency developed over time.

“It wasn’t very sudden,” Santavicca said. “The moment that I had interest of doing something larger for the student body beyond the staff requirements or as an intern ... was last spring ... and ever since then I’ve had these desires and goals for the organization to be something more for the student body.”

Santavicca ran with a platform of increased transparency, student engagement and collaboration with the student body. Santavicca said one of his main goals is to make ASMSU’s actions and impact more visible to students.

“My vision is that students are going to know what ASMSU is doing,” Santavicca said. “It’s a very lofty goal, but the reality is when a student is paying $18 for their tax, we have a responsibility to make sure that the student knows what we’re doing, and that they have a voice directly to come to our meetings and public comment or voice those (concerns) to the representatives.”

Some of Santavicca’s proposed solutions to engaging the student body include creating a petition site for ASMSU similar to that of the White House, holding the organization’s general assembly meetings at different locations across the MSU neighborhoods instead of perennially in Student Services and advocating for the ASMSU presidency to be voted on by students rather than just the general assembly.

“It does really sadden me to know that we have so much influence in the university as the undergraduate student government that we are, and students don’t think much of that,” Santavicca said. “While the (5.2 percent voter) turnout was great this year, I’d like to see that to be a whole 100 percent, let’s get that there.”

As transparency and engagement are important parts of his platform, Santavicca said he intends to always be open to addressing student concerns.