Senior and recently elected Young Alumni Trustee Ayo Ositelu said the significance of his new position did not fully hit him until he was formally greeted at a reception on Thursday night.

"I knew that this role was important, but going to the reception Thursday really solidified it in my mind," he said. "I still do not know everything about the role, but it really hit me what a great opportunity to improve the campus that night."

Ositelu, a biomedical engineer and mathematics double major from Indianapolis, said he has thoroughly enjoyed his time at Vanderbilt. But he also said he knows there is room for improvement when it comes to the undergraduate experience.

While it is a complicated issue, Ositelu said he believes one of the biggest issues facing students on campus is the way diversity works on campus.

"One of the things right off the bat is just certain aspects of diversity relations in the school," he said. Ositelu said it is a difficult problem to define, but he cited a need for more on-campus collaboration between groups of different backgrounds as an example.

Over the last four years, he has witnessed serious strides in terms of acceptance, he said. According to Ositelu, events like Lambda's PRIDE week and the reaction to Juicy Campus last year show that Vanderbilt and the students are doing what they can to meet everyone's needs.

Nevertheless, Ositelu stressed that he wants to continue moving forward.

"I want the campus to be such that race is secondary because we are all human beings," he said.

What that would look like specifically is something he hopes to investigate as a member of the board. Right now he says just having more collaboration and involvement between different groups of people at different events on campus is a good start.

"The issues here on campus are complicated. It is more so that I just want everyone here to move past race," Ositelu said.

Ositelu said his work with the African Student Union has helped him in better understanding the issue but now he will be able to address it in a new way.

"I feel like now I am in a position that I can definitely do things to help remedy this situation," he said.

In terms of his general goals, Ositelu said he would like to see the school rise in national rankings with more competitive students. But most importantly, he said he would like everyone who goes through the Vanderbilt experience to have a lot of pride in the fact that they are a Commodore and have a strong desire to give back to the school.

"I am very thankful and I can't wait to get started and I will certainly represent the student body to the best of my abilities," Ositelu said. "I would like to be able to give the students the resources they need to be able to do well on campus. A lot of people have a lot of ideas, but aiding in the effort to give their more resources to achieve what they want to achieve."