Sarah Armstrong ’18, the current Sophomore Class Council president, does not want to be the voice of the students.

“The students are already voicing what they want,” the Yale College Council presidential candidate said. “I want to be the link between the students and the administration. I don’t want the YCC to speak for people who are already speaking really well for themselves.”

Instead, Armstrong said she aims to bring leaders of various student groups into conversations with administrators and YCC representatives on issues that matter to them. That way, she said, students can voice their opinions more directly and more accurately, without having to go through any administrative body.

Armstrong counts financial aid, cultural inclusion and the campus sexual climate among her top priorities, but much of her platform is also based on improving efficiency within the YCC and avoiding bureaucratic systems that prevent reforms from coming to fruition. Armstrong said she wants to streamline how the YCC operates by publishing policy recommendations as a single-page “sales pitch” with a list of highlights, rather than in lengthy reports, the format the YCC currently uses.

Her involvement with the Sophomore Class Council — which operates outside of the YCC’s main executive structure — has given her an outsider’s perspective on how to improve these processes, she said.

Armstrong’s work organizing the first-ever Sophomore Brunch this year has convinced her that going directly to the University administration with brief, clear proposals is most effective. When the YCC presented her with a timeline for the project that she considered unsatisfactory, Armstrong circumvented the body to deliver her one-page plan and was granted funding for the new tradition.

Armstrong, who suffers from dyslexia, said her experience has informed her advocacy for groups whose problems have traditionally slipped under the radar, like students with intellectual disabilities and those whose parents do not speak English — a factor that can complicate the financial aid process.

In addition to being Sophomore Class Council president, Armstrong is an Association of Yale Alumni delegate for the class of 2018 and a campus leader for Unite Against Sexual Assault Yale. She has also done extensive work with Dwight Hall, which she says would motivate her to be a more service-minded YCC president than Yale has seen in the past.

Bennett Byerley ’19, who serves as community service chair for the Freshman Class Council — a post that Armstrong herself created — said Armstrong’s passion for community service would help her make it a more prominent part of the YCC’s work.

“[Armstrong] is the one that represented Dwight Hall most in her platform and allowed service to be integrated with the mission of student government,” Byerley said.

He added that Armstrong’s targeted advocacy for students whose voices have gone unheard makes her a strong candidate, and highlighted her commitment to reforming financial aid and improving the sexual climate on campus as strengths of her platform.

Madeleine Colbert ’18, a friend of Armstrong’s and a volunteer on her campaign, said Armstrong’s commitment to ensuring that students can directly voice their concerns to administrators would make her a particularly effective YCC president.

If elected, Armstrong would be the second female YCC president in the past 16 years, she said.