Courtesy of Iris Li

Iris Li ’24, the candidate running unopposed for Vice President of the Yale College Council, is placing a spotlight on the YCC Senate this campaign season, calling the body the “lifeline of the YCC.”

Li is also emphasizing what her running-mate, unopposed YCC presidential candidate Leleda Beraki ’24, has centered her campaign around: accountability. A Pennsylvania native and self-proclaimed March Madness fan, Li has served as a First-year Class Council representative for Pierson College, a finance manager on the Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee and an associate senator on the Career Resources and Civic Engagement team. She currently serves as the academic life policy director alongside Beraki.

“I’m most comfortable working in the policy branch of the YCC because it will lead to institutional change that will stay here long after Leleda and I are gone,” Li said. “A lot of my gratitude goes out to the past members of YCC because they have led to the current systems that we have in place today. I want to do that as well.”

Outside of her experience in the YCC, Li is involved in the Women’s Leadership Initiative Conferences and the Urban Philanthropic Fund at Yale. She also serves as a writing partner at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning and is a Pierson College aide. 

Li sees policy as “a change to institutional life and institutional memory forever,” she said, and expressed her hope for future Yale College classes to have access to the changes she aims to make during her tenure.

According to Li, not everyone has the “bandwidth” to be advocating for themselves all the time and sees it as the YCC’s role to do so. 

“That is why I care very deeply about policy work and projects,” Li said. “It’s our job to take care of everyone even if they can’t give their full time to advocating for it 24/7 like we can.”

Li and Beraki’s platform is based on “Redefining Yale” because, Li said, people should be able to define the University however they want to.

Their campaign website emphasizes a plan in accountability focusing on five areas: Academic, Financial, Health, Campus and the YCC. 

“We want to be the tools and resources by which students can advocate for themselves and we can represent their needs towards the faces that make their decisions,” Li said. 

According to Li, accountability makes “everything else possible.”

Li said that “key” parts of their platform — such as making dining hall dollars more “transparent and usable” in different spaces or expanding the current Yale College Community Care (YC3) model — all hinge on the fact that her and Leleda have “a model for the YCC that’s fundamentally different for making the YCC accountable and that’s not isolating [themselves from the student body],” she said. 

Li said she and Beraki feel especially equipped for their new roles leading the YCC because they have worked together in the organization in the past. This experience, she said, has given them the knowledge of what “roadblocks” to avoid and how to effectively enact change by working with the administration. 

Li and Beraki first met in online FCC meetings in 2020. Li said she has always admired Beraki’s ability to “communicate her vision to people” and make the YCC an accessible and inclusive space.

“There is no one else I would have run with,” Li said. “I will not do this alone. We work a lot better in a pair.”

Their prior friendship, according to Li, helps keep them both accountable for each other and for their fundamental vision — one that promotes passion, care and empathy for all campus happenings, rather than one that promotes “burnout.” 

Li said she wants the student body to vote for her and Beraki not because they are running on an unopposed ticket, but because they are who the student body wants running the YCC. 

In talking about how “expansive” and “collaborative” policy within the YCC should be, Li mentioned some rough ideas they have, such as having therapists available specifically for first-years to prevent first-year counselors, or FroCos, from becoming “mental health dumping grounds.” 

Li said she finds it “disheartening” how many YCC senators are not seeking reelection, and she hopes that this changes in the next election cycle — during which, she added, she hopes candidates feel “inspired or empowered” by her and Beraki’s term.

Campus-wide voting will take place 9 a.m. on April 21 on YaleConnect.

Correction, April 29: A previous version of this article referred to Li as the deputy academic life policy director. In fact, she is the academic life policy director, although last year she was the deputy academic life policy director. The article has been updated to reflect this.