Cayla Chew and Johanna Li Elected Student Union President and Vice President for the 2025-2026 School Year

“Our main goal is to really just keep up with what we’ve been doing in the Student Union this year because I think we did a really great job improving interactions with students, doing other events, and helping students get through difficult times.” —SU President (for 25-26) Cayla Chew

Focus Sentence: Cayla Chew and Johanna Li share their aspirations for the 2025-2026 school year after being elected as the incoming Student Union President and Vice President, respectively.

Art/Photo Request: Picture of Cayla and Johanna

Tags: student union, SU, president, vice president, 2025-2026, 2025-26, 25-26, Cayla Chew, Johanna Li, student government

After an uncontested election, junior Cayla Chew and sophomore Johanna Li were recently named the Student Union (SU) President and Vice President for the 2025-2026 school year, respectively. Chew is currently the SU Vice President, and Li is co-president of the Sophomore Caucus. Both expressed excitement about leading the Student Union and continuing to improve student life and events at Stuyvesant.

Chew and Li have known each other since Li was a freshman, and they have maintained a strong friendship and professional dynamic. They describe themselves as having similar work styles, while still bringing unique ideas and perspectives, which they expect will be helpful in their roles as President and Vice President. “I think we work really similarly,” Li said. “Cayla was a big guidance to me for the past two years, and I think what makes us even stronger is that we both have opinions and we’re able to share them to each other and I think we both gather different perspectives but are still able to work in the same structure and are able to get all the stuff done.” 

Chew expressed a strong passion for improving Stuyvesant and was motivated to run for President in order to create positive change for the entire student body. “I started doing caucus in freshman year gaining that type of momentum to create the same change for everyone in our entire school as Vice President and hopefully as President as well,” Chew said.

Li was similarly inspired to run, especially because of her appreciation of the Stuyvesant community and her desire to to contribute to it. “I was already incorporated in this type of environment where there are always upperclassmen who are guiding, and I really fell in love with this community and wanted to continue it. There’s a lot of things that you can learn throughout it, and I think this is the right thing for me,” Li said.

Next year, Chew and Li aim to build on SU’s successes from this year, such as increasing their social media presence, doing many more events, and increasing collaboration with different groups at Stuyvesant like the Big Sibs, Parents’ Association, and Alumni Association to host events like the career fairs in October and January. Chew believes that the SU made significant improvements this year and hopes to continue that momentum. “Our main goal is to really just keep up with what we’ve been doing in the Student Union this year because I think we did a really great job improving interactions with students, doing other events, and helping students get through difficult times,” Chew said. Under the current SU leadership, students have had access to helpful textbook PDFs, as well as interesting events including college tours and the student-teacher-faculty talent show. Chew and Li aim to continue offering these resources and events in the following school year.

Li also emphasized her desire to continue increasing school spirit and engagement within the community, something she feels has been very successful this year. “This year in Stuy’s community there was a lot more engagement and more spirit as well, and I think that’s something we want to continue for next year,” Li said.

When asked if there was anything they hoped to change for next year, Chew said they didn’t plan to make major adjustments, as the SU had already implemented many improvements. “Comparing last year’s Student Union, we’ve just made so many different changes already,” she said. “In comparison, I think we really upped the social media, we did a lot more events, and lots of collaboration with Big Sibs, the Parents’ Association, [and the] Alumni Association, to make things better. I don’t think I would necessarily change anything about that, but maybe, if anything, just to improve more.”

Chew and Li also aim to continue organizing the career fairs, which they believe were highly successful and beneficial to the student body. “This year, what I think really went so well is that because the Parents’ Association and the Alumni Association have such great networking systems we were able to get so many people from different careers, so the way we’re going to do it this year is hopefully what we did last year,” Chew said.

For future years, Li would like to continue improving the career fair by increasing outreach to an even wider range of careers so students can explore everything they might be interested in. “One thing we might improve is more outreach on [the career fair] because we want to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to explore all their interests,” Li said.

Chew also emphasized the importance of continued communication with the administration, which she felt was effective this year. She hopes this collaboration can support even more improvements, like the expansion of the Clubs and Pubs Fair. “Just continuing the same type of communication with [the administration] and … improving the type of work that we do,” Chew said. “This year, we were able to expand the amount of floors we had for the Clubs and Pubs Fair, so instead of just having maybe 100 clubs represented, it was 200 or all the clubs getting represented that actually signed up, and I think that’s what makes collaborating with administration so special.”

Chew and Li want students to know that the SU is always there to represent them, and that they should feel free to reach out with any concerns or ideas. They also encourage anyone who wants to make a difference in their community to consider joining SU. “The Student Union is actually working really hard to make sure all student voices are being heard, and if they feel like they’re being underrepresented just know we’re trying our best and they should definitely reach out,” Chew said.

Both Chew and Li expressed excitement about continuing their work to make Stuyvesant and the Student Union better than ever, especially through expanding the Clubs and Pubs Fair and strengthening ties to the Parents’ Association and the Alumni Association. “We’re really excited for our term,” Li said, “and we’ll try to make this term one of the best.”