Yale President!
Posted: 19 Oct 2025, 08:32
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CANDIDATE PROFILE: Leleda Beraki ’24
Beraki, who is running unopposed for president of the Yale College Council, shared her platform and campaign approach.
Paloma Vigil
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/04/ ... beraki-24/
Apr 19, 2022
Courtesy of the Yale College Council
When asked about her plans for the Yale College Council next year, Leleda Beraki ’24 did not hesitate to say
for herself and for the YCC as a whole.taking accountability
Born in Eritrea and now living in Virginia, Beraki is running unopposed for President of the YCC, alongside vice president Iris Li ’24. Once elected, Beraki will be Yale’s first female Black president of the YCC.
Beraki said.I know that I will be the first Black woman in this position and I don’t want it to be by chance,
Beraki served as president of the First-year Class Council upon arriving at Yale, and currently is the president of the Sophomore Class Council. This academic year, she also sat on the YCC’s Executive Board as the deputy academic life policy director alongside Li. Outside of the Council, Beraki is the Leading Ladies director at the Women’s Leadership Initiative and serves as a student assistant and is on the new student outreach and programming team for the African American Cultural House. She also has amassed a large TikTok and YouTube following, creating videos about life at Yale.I want it to be because the student body genuinely believes I need to be in this role and this identity was meant to be in this space.
Drawing from her two-year involvement in the YCC, Beraki said that the Council needs to work on accountability and being
She framed the recent conversation about disengagement within the YCC Senate as stemming from a lack of accountability for senators and thetransparent and very comprehensible.
weird hierarchical process in which work is passed along.
Beraki said.The work of the YCC is not a joke,
As president, Beraki aims to enforce the strict rules that the YCC Constitution has in place for attendance and voting within the Senate. Beraki also intends to give student organizations more of a voice within the YCC, focusing on being more “student-work facing,” she said.If you tell your colleagues that you will be there for them, make their voices heard and then you turn around and don’t actually do those things, it’s extremely frustrating.
Beraki said.The YCC has often served as this savior and stepped in front of student organizations and spoken for them and I think that a huge thing we want to see this coming year is including organizations in the decision-making process, especially if it involves them,
Beraki hopes that the student body can be more aware of the process of the YCC’s advocacy, rather than just the result.
she said.In the past the YCC’s public announcements have been ‘here’s what we’ve gotten done,’ and I want it to be, ‘here’s what we’re working on,’
Beraki first met Li, who is running uncontested for the position of vice president, through online First-year College Council meetings in 2020. She described Li as a very “forward” person who was her
Beraki and Li had a two-week conversation discussing all the moving parts that would be their campaign:instant best friend.
and their platform,Redefining Yale
During the lead-up to their campaign launch, the pair discussed the contexts in which they would be best friends and conversely, when they would be president and vice president, she said.A2A: Approaches to Accountability.
The five-part platform, as seen in Beraki and Li’s campaign website, includes accountability in distinct sectors: Academic, Financial, Health, Campus and the YCC.
According to Beraki, if YCC accountability is first secured through intra-organization communication, and they are able to shift the perception of the YCC “off the bat,” then the rest of the five parts will follow through.
As president, Beraki aims to foster increased collaboration within the YCC because of the “intersectionality” that exists between different policy areas and their respective teams. She also hopes to remove divides within the focal points of the YCC’s policy approach.
she said.We don’t want academic policy to be the only thing that changes while financial policy is 10 years behind, or vice versa,
Beraki and Li only found out they would be running unopposed the day before public campaigning began. Upon learning the news, Beraki said she did not feel a sense of relief but rather a sense of “urgency.”
Even without an opponent, Beraki believes the campaign is important, as she feels that effective communication during one’s campaign is a clear indicator of the way one will communicate during the actual running of the organization.
Beraki said.The YCC was never about running against someone else, it was about running for what you believe in,
Overall, Beraki said that sheI think that is why we have been taking all this campaigning so seriously.
which is why she decided to run for president.would like the humanity to be reattached to the projects we’re working on,
Campus-wide voting will take place 9 a.m. on April 21 on YaleConnect.
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