After a month-long campaign, totaling 1,947 votes, the University of Iowa Undergraduate Student Government announced third-year Emily Cross and second-year Matiana Edmonds were elected president and vice president, respectively, for the 2026-27 academic year.
Cross served as USG’s vice president and Edmonds as speaker pro tempore for the 2025-26 academic year.
Victoria Johnson, USG student elections commissioner, said she was proud the organization pulled in 733 more votes than in last year’s election.
“I’m excited for next year to get even more votes,” she said. “We really increased voter engagement this year.”
Johnson said USG was able to pull in more votes by being more engaged with student voters, providing donuts, energy drinks, or pizza for students who voted.
Cross follows the outgoing 2025-26 USG President Thomas Knudsen, who brought a lively energy to the student government, Johnson said.
“He approached USG with a very fresh and enthusiastic mindset. I think that this was something that he was excited to be involved in,” she said.
Knudsen gave an address to USG at a meeting on March 31 reflecting on his time in the role.
Expressing gratitude, Knudsen offered advice to the student government, telling them that many opportunities lie on the other side of questions that students are either too proud or too afraid to ask.
Knudsen encouraged the crowd to strive for an “A in discomfort,” which, in his case, came from leading the student government, asking them to take time to reflect on themselves, and welcome the discomfort that comes with finding and living by their dreams.
“Leadership will take the places that you didn’t prepare for,” he said. “It will put you in rooms where you feel you don’t belong, that are way out of your depth, it will hand you decisions that keep you up at night.”
Knudsen said that above any bullet point on a resume, every student should “show up for their life” and not save any goals, no matter how small, for later.
“Walk this campus like you’re seeing it for the first time, eat some really nice food we have in Iowa City, go to the IMU and just sit there, surround yourself with people who make you better, and then go be that person for someone else, because that’s the Iowa way,” he said.
Faith Briones, USG chief justice of USG’s Student Court Leadership, said Knudsen and Cross made a tangible impact in USG as they leave behind their current roles.
“I definitely felt like a lot more cohesion and an effort to collaborate from Thomas and Emily,” she said. “We never really had a president who tried this hard to reach across branches and really understand every single aspect of student government.”
Briones said she looks forward to Cross following up on a productive year for USG, which recently passed a resolution asking the university to raise student wages on March 31.
Briones said she hopes that as Cross takes on the role of president, she will continue to push for the university to invest more in mental health resources.
“Every single time we go to news officials, and whenever we’re at the capitol, she always tries to advocate for mental health access,” she said. “Emily and Matiana definitely are strategic enough to push for bigger strides regarding that initiative.”