Introducing: Annabelle Fernandez First-Year Class President

Beka Ruehle ‘30

Photo from Annabelle Fernandez ‘30

In a recent election,  Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) first-years elected Annabelle Fernandez ‘30 as the Class of 2030 President. According to the SLC Student Senate bylaws, the role of the Freshman class president is to “Act as the liaison between their class and the Senate.” Among other things, their responsibilities include serving as a voting member on both the Student Activities Subcommittee and the Students for Scholarship Fund Committee (SSSF), holding 3 events a year and organizing Town Hall Meetings to address student concerns.

Fernandez is from Kansas City, Missouri, and was involved in a variety of extracurricular activities in high school, but she was most passionate about Mock Trial and Debate, having maintained leadership roles in both. A few of her other accolades include being the state chair of the Missouri High School Democrats for 2 years, swimming competitively, ghostwriting for a Kansas City political candidate and volunteering for over 100 hours at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. She also enjoys baking, reading and cooking in her spare time. 

Fernandez chose SLC because of the seminar-based learning environment and the focus on experiential-based learning. She is currently studying Politics and Pre-law, with the hopes of one day becoming a criminal defense lawyer and later becoming involved in politics. The issues she is most passionate about are overcriminalization in the justice system, workers’ rights movements and accurate representation in politics. Fernandez is beyond grateful for her role as the first-year class president, stating, “I think it’s nice that I’ve found a community where I actually really fit into and I am valued as the leader I want to be.” 

Annabelle’s Agenda: 

As first-year class president, Fernandez’s main goals are to perpetuate a positive and open atmosphere at SLC, serve the community, and represent the interests of the Class of 2030 in its entirety. 

Many of the candidates for first-year class president ran on similar campaigns this year, and Fernandez partially attributes her success in the election to the name recognition she received after discourse circulated regarding her political affiliation on the anonymous social app Fizz. This included a since-deleted post stating “so apparently one of the candidates is republican” and a response post right before the elections stating “ANNABELLE IS NOT A REPUBLICAN check her personal insta account it has a politics highlight.” 

Fernandez asserted that she is indeed not a Republican, and attributed the rumors to the contrary to her national recognition as the 2026 champion of the “Ronald Reagan Debate Series.” According to the official website of this competition, “Our debate emulates the style of presidential debates of old, emphasizing practical communication skills like civility, personality, humor, and storytelling,” and has no partisan ties. Partially because of this misunderstanding, one of Fernandez’s priorities as she takes office is to foster a more open and accepting atmosphere at SLC. She stated, “I don’t think anyone deserves to be attacked for simply, maybe disagreeing,” and recognized that “if it’s an issue with our grade particularly, in terms of not welcoming people or not being open to other people’s ideas, then there’s totally something we can do about it.”

Fernandez also mentioned that two of her political inspirations are Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan because “both of them, regardless of their policies, were characterized as people’s presidents” and “no matter who they were talking to — even if it was their political opponent — they were friendly and they were civil, and that’s not really a thing we have in politics anymore.” Later, when discussing her experience of being “accused” of being a Republican, she stated, “I don’t want to overtly be like, ‘we need to have conversations about politics’ —  that’s not my goal, that’s not my role, but my role is to make sure people feel welcome and feel included, and so it’s kind of like a balance between that.” 

Another of Fernandez’s priorities is to make community service more accessible for students at SLC. She mentioned that she hopes to facilitate several volunteer events throughout the year, both to place a further emphasis on serving the community and to make volunteering more accessible to students, especially first-years who are unfamiliar with the city. She explained, “If I host one thing with 30 people, and we go all the way down to Brooklyn to volunteer, those 30 people can now go on their own because they’re more comfortable with it.” 

Fernandez also stated that her “first priority is connecting with the students more.” As first-year class president, she will advise on budgets for the Student Activities Committee, and one piece of her platform is ensuring funding for the clubs that the Class of 2030 is passionate about. She intends to gauge this by regularly sending out Google Forms to the class — once she has been given her official email address — asking them about their priorities and involvements on campus.

Additionally, Fernandez hopes to advocate for increased affordability on campus — especially regarding the increase in laundry prices and the fact that students are currently required to purchase toilet paper for their en suite bathrooms. She also mentioned starting a biweekly or monthly first-year “shout-out” to “highlight accomplishments around campus,” stating that not only would it help the Class of 2030 feel recognized in their accomplishments, but it would also help people “start to know each other really well.” 

Finally, Fernandez stated that one of her main political idols is David Hogg (cofounder of the organization Leaders We Deserve) because he promotes candidates that genuinely reflect the interests of the communities they are running in, something that she is passionate about in her role as first-year president and beyond. As she succinctly stated, “My job is to put the first-year class priorities first.”

As of Oct. 3, Fernandez did not yet have access to her official Instagram or email accounts, but she is open to receiving messages on her campaign Instagram @vote4_annabelle.