StuCo President-Elect: Cam Khater ‘25

Cam Khater smiles in front of Jeremiah Smith Hall

Photo Courtesy of Roxane Park

By SAM ALTMAN

Last Friday, Feb. 9, upper Cam Khater, a resident of Abbot Hall, was elected Student Council President for the 2024-2025 term. This news came after a hard-fought campaigning season and presidential runoff debate. Khater commented on his background, “I’m from Joliet, Illinois, a small blue-collar city outside of Chicago. I love to play the video game FIFA with my friends. In terms of my experiences thus far at Exeter, in addition to my StuCo experience, JV soccer has prepared me to be a leader and move on after dropping an absolute howler, qualities that we all know every president should have.” 

Khater also discussed how he felt the debate was useful, saying, “I think it gave a lot of people who might not have known myself or other candidates a chance to hear us talk, hear some of our thoughts, even our humor and personalities, and our policies. Especially for younger students who probably don’t know a ton about these things, I think it gave them a needed window into the world of student council.”

With experience as a former co-head of the Student Life Committee, Khater also discussed his philosophy for the types of issues that he will direct Student Council to focus on, and how he plans to utilize the organization’s funds. “It’s sort of similar to an initiative by Siona Jain, who I believe was president my prep year: in essence, to spend all the money that student council has available for the year, because we’re only here for at most four years and we want to see something actually happen,” Khater shared. “And if we’re always focused on large-scale, huge time-frame issues, then we’ll rarely see meaningful change. Honestly, I think that the things that you remember from Exeter are sort of the small everyday items like, for example, getting food from a food truck, between your science class and your math class, and enjoying that type of thing.” 

“One of my earliest memories at Exeter,” Khater continued, “and what originally made me fall in love with this campus, was having those food trucks around. If I could have one last memory with some of my friends in class of 2024, it would be to have food trucks and truly bring that memory back. It’s the best time ever, and the preps haven’t really experienced it: eating everywhere on the quad, on the benches, all of that, wherever you like.”

Khater also discussed the possibility of changes in the way we choose Prom venues. “In addition to some of my other policy points, another thing, which I haven’t been able to talk about too much thus far, is granting the right to seniors to choose their Prom location. We’ve talked about it before in StuCo, but nevertheless students have been stuck with the same venue for many years now. And, don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome venue, but I know other schools have their seniors choose their location, and Andover even did it on a cruise last year. I think the seniors deserve a vote, one last hurrah. Call me crazy, but I think if you’ve been here for that long, you’ve put in all this work, we have the money to do it, I think you should have the right to choose where you want to have your Prom. I think the seniors and everyone else would love it.”

Although he wants to focus on more achievable and small-scale issues, Khater also recognized the importance of policy improvements of larger-scale reforms relating to student mental health and transparency with available Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). However, he suggested that these responsibilities should be primarily delegated to various Student Council committees for efficiency’s sake. “If I were to put all my thinking and effort as president, saddled with a lot of other responsibilities, into CAPS transparency (and again, we don’t really know what that means), it feels like I’d almost be avoiding the big picture,” Khater said. “I think this is what Student Council committees are made for…just as in any system like this, delegation to those who can focus more on the topic is key. With regards to some of the issues mentioned by other candidates, [the] Mental Health Committee, for example, is a huge player. They’ve run events in the past, and I also want to expand their role, because they do their research, they publish infographics, and all sorts of things related to mental health. I’ll ask them: ‘What do you guys see as CAPS reform?’”

Khater continued, “Truthfully, as a committee head myself, the committees are the engines by which Student Council makes progress. If we didn’t have committees, we would simply be four idiots running around trying to fix a school; it would be a power trip.” 

“I’ve talked to Lauren and Kyle a bit so far, and they seem like great people,” Khater expressed, referring to the newly elected Student Council Co-Secretaries, lowers Kyle Kennedy’s and Lauren Lee. “I don’t know them extremely well yet, but I plan to get to know them very well as we begin to work together.” 

“Anna and I, being in the same grade, have worked on various StuCo [initiatives] before, and in classes and whatnot,” he continued, mentioning upper Anna Holtz who will be serving as his Vice President. “So I know Anna more than the other two, but I want to get to know all of them as I would my friends, because that’s the most important to our relationship as we move into the coming year.”

Khater concluded with gratitude for all who supported his campaign journey: “Thank you so much, Exeter, and, as a lot of people have repeated to me on the paths, let’s feast!”