Third-year College student Clay Dickerson was sworn in as Student Council president for the 2025-2026 term March 30. Several of his goals are centered around ensuring financial accessibility for all University students as he aims to support students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds with direct services.
“Being a limited income student, my struggles from my youth carried on to U.Va., despite financial aid, and I wanted to not only make the University a better place for myself, but for all my friends who didn't have the opportunity that I did to be in Student Council,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson began his time in Student Council his first year as a part of the membership agency in the Administrations Branch, responsible for recruiting and retaining Student Council members. He said he joined Student Council in order to form a sense of community and build meaningful relationships during his first year of University.
“I’ve always tried to follow my heart and trust my gut with [my] involvements,” Dickerson said. “My first year, I noticed I really wanted to build more community because I felt like I was missing it … so I noticed Student Council [had] and agency called membership … and I got in.”
In his second year, Dickerson was the director of financial accessibility — a branch dedicated to expanding financial services and resources to students. The following year, Dickerson served as the Chief of the Support and Access Services branch which was established in 2021 to provide direct services to students such as free student legal services and an Accommodations Access Fund to help students in securing disability confirmation paperwork. Dickerson said his role as Chief of SAS gave him the opportunity he was looking for to aid students.
“I saw SAS as the next step [in] providing services that people can benefit from immediately, making, in my opinion, some of the most meaningful changes [on Student Council],” Dickerson said.
While he was initially not planning to run for president, Dickerson said that the branch of SAS is at risk as a new Council branch and requires better administrative support through funding and internal efficiency reviews in order to remain a viable part of Student Council. He explained that Student Council was originally designed to only fund three branches — the Administration, Cabinet and Organizations branches — and Dickerson’s aim to better support SAS played a role in his decision to run for president.
Dickerson also noted that as a limited income student himself, he ultimately decided to run to continue providing and fighting for students who need the services that Student Council can provide.
“I felt like I would be remiss if I did not utilize my [position] given the opportunity that I had,” Dickerson said. “Also, given the knowledge I have and the experience, not only leading [first-generation, limited income] students, but being a limited income student myself, [I understand] how to truly fight for equity for these individuals.”
With the idea of accessibility for all in mind, Dickerson said one of his most important goals for his term is to establish a University-wide business closet for students. While schools like Virginia Commonwealth University and William & Mary have institutionalized business closets, he noted that the University is one of the only schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia to not have one.
According to Dickerson, Swap at U.Va. has already agreed to donate the business attire they will get from this semester’s big swap. Swap is a Contracted Independent Organization focused on promoting sustainable shopping at low or free costs through monthly clothing exchanges among students. Dickerson said a large motive behind this goal comes from his own passion for clothing and thrifting, but also because business clothes simply are not attainable for many students.
“There’s so many students at U.Va. who don’t have [a] suit, a nice blazer, a button-up. You can’t always find the time to go shopping for yourself when you’re working for yourself,” Dickerson said.
A second goal for Dickerson is to increase the number of advisory boards under Student Council. Dickerson explained advisory boards are a combination of students and other interested community stakeholders. Lily Dorathy, third-year Batten and College student and Student Council director of coalition engagement, went through Student Council bylaws and found there should be several advisory boards, with there currently only being one. According to Dickerson, Advisory Boards typically have applications and range from 20-30 members in which members meet weekly or bi-weekly to discuss community issues their Board is committed to, often organizing a larger project or lobbying goal.
According to Dickerson and Dorathy, the one existent advisory board is the Public Service Advisory Board which consists of a number of community organizations, such as Madison House — a center for student volunteering at the University — as well as students appointed by those organizations.
However, the PSAB is not one of the advisory boards listed in the Student Council bylaws which, according to Dickerson, instead state that there should be Student Police and Student Dining advisory boards. Dickerson said he wants to reactivate the advisory boards listed, as well as edit the bylaws to officially add the PSAB.
He said advisory boards allow students to be involved in Student Council by encouraging students to make an impact on the University on their own time even when they cannot make it to traditional Student Council meeting times.
“I want to copy and paste the [PSAB] structure on these new [advisory boards], such that they can then operate and thrive on their own,” Dickerson said. “So, [that for] my friends who work doubles, my friends who [work] overtime, working in executive roles can fit in their schedule, [giving them] an opportunity to change this University.”
In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, Dickerson said he has already started conducting research to determine his goals for the future of advisory boards.
Dickerson is also interested in continuing and expanding data collection efforts introduced in the previous term. An initiative to collect data for the branches within the Council was started by Valentina Mendoza Gonzalez, former Student Council president and fourth-year College student. According to Mendoza Gonzalez, this was a way to track how many students benefit from services being provided and manage ongoing projects. Dickerson said he hopes to continue this data tracking, not just for the numbers, but also to provide checks of internal efficiency for the Council.
“Being so excited to keep SAS alive, I noticed how significant data collection is for it to succeed,” Dickerson said. “If you can’t collect data, then you can’t fundraise, and if you can’t fundraise, you can’t hold your services.”
Dickerson said that he wants to maintain a realistic mindset throughout his presidential term. He noted how quickly the year can go by and the fact that it is simply not possible to accomplish everything one might want to in this role of Student Council president. However, he said that he is excited about these two initiatives and will work hard to achieve them during his term as president.
“I’m trying to keep myself realistic. If one goal gets accomplished, I’ll move onto the next step,” Dickerson said.
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