Former Resident Director Coral Santos Runs For Local Office
Former Marist Resident Director Coral Santos, who recently ran for office in Poughkeepsie. Photo courtesy of Coral Santos.
On Election Day, members of the Marist community may have seen a familiar name on their ballot. Former Marist Resident Director Coral Santos, who went to graduate school at Marist, launched her political career by running for Councilwoman of Poughkeepsie in Ward 4.
Santos, who received her master’s degree in Public Administration from Marist in 2020, emphasized that this race was a “warmup” for her and that she has broader future aspirations for her political career. Holding dual-citizenship in Mexico, Santos noted how one of her long-term dreams is to hold office in Mexico when she retires.
The Marist graduate has taken on an active role in the local area by founding an educational cross-cultural exchange program and establishing a partnership and sister community with Poughkeepsie and her country of origin, Oaxaca, Mexico.
“We're working on paper with state officials over there and the mayor of Poughkeepsie here to make sure that on paper, we're sister cities, so you can have a business and official relationship on paper,” Santos said.
In addition to her future aspirations, Santos also highlighted how Marist inspired her to run for office. Santos believes her experience at Marist helped her to consider why running for office was important to her. She said, “I would definitely like to give a lot of credit to Marist for furthering my education and providing me with the opportunity to just see past my perspective and to think literally, what pushes me to be a global citizen.”
Santos particularly credited her experience as representing Marist at a Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) simulation, where she competed with 400 other students from all over the country to design sustainable cities of the future. Upon arriving at the event, she was struck by the lack of representation of women of color and drew parallels between the homogeneity at the simulation and the lack of diversity in politics as a whole.
“Everyone was so gifted and had great ideas, but at that moment, it kind of just hit me that there needs to be more representation with people from different perspectives,” Santos said.
In her campaign for Poughkeepsie town council, Santos aimed to address local budgetary issues and advocated for increased transparency. She noted how, despite steady tax increases, Poughkeepsie residents haven’t seen a similar increase in resources or visible improvements. Thus, one of her main campaign initiatives was to “increase budget transparency and offer constituents the ability to request where the excess funds could go”.
Another main priority of her campaign was youth development in Poughkeepsie. Santos made youth development a prominent focus as she recognized that it “makes a huge difference when there's opportunities after school for the youth, and they need to be presented with greater opportunities.”
Santos encouraged Marist students to plan ahead in order to best make use of their education and to seize every opportunity. “I would definitely encourage their students to create a vision board,” she said. Santos added, “I know this sounds very trivial, but creating a vision board and writing a plan for that vision board will ultimately keep you on track of your goals.”