Akwasi Antwi (CAS’25) addresses the Class of 2028 during Boston University’s annual Matriculation Ceremony, September 1, 2024. Photo by Janice Checchio

Student Life

Student Government President Akwasi Antwi Reflects on a Year of Transformation and Transparency

The outgoing leader says the most rewarding aspect of his tenure has been building better engagement with students

In August 2021, Akwasi Antwi sat among thousands of fellow students at Boston University’s Matriculation Ceremony in Agganis Arena listening to Nyah Jordan, 2021-2022 Student Government president, deliver her address to the incoming Class of 2025. 

As Jordan (CGS’20, COM’22) spoke, Antwi (CAS’25) felt a spark—he could see himself one day standing at that podium. 

“I felt the inkling that I wanted to be able to touch the hearts of, and advocate for, my students, and I found that being the student body president was one of the best ways to do that,” he says, “This particular role really appealed to me from the very beginning.”

Three years later, Antwi joined the 2024 BreakthroughBU slate. And now, as the 2024-2025 school year winds down, and his own graduation approaches, he’s been able to reflect on what it’s meant to lead BU’s student government.

He had just founded and become president of BU’s Ghanian Student Organization, so was hesitant about joining the slate. But with some convincing from Maddie Ariola (CAS’25), the slate’s vice president, Antwi became its presidential candidate. With nearly 5,000 votes, BreakthroughBU went on to win the election—at the time it was the largest turnout in BU history, a record broken this year by the BridgeToBU slate.

In 2024, Antwi set a few key goals he wanted to accomplish as BU Student Government president. The first—and the most prominent—objective was to make his community proud. 

“As marginalized people, we can all sympathize with that: making my family proud, the Black community proud, people of color, LGBTQ people, people that see themselves not being represented in leadership, in power structures—it was all trying to make those people be seen,” Antwi says. 

His second goal was to bridge the gap between students and the BU administration—which was a brand-new endeavor with the 2024 historic inauguration of Melissa Gilliam as BU president. 

His third goal was to make Student Government more accessible and transparent—a goal he says, upon reflection now, was the most successful. 

“We simply just didn’t see this level of engagement, this level of accessibility, this level of outreach to the students, and that’s something that I will always be proud of,” Antwi says. “Being able to lift this organization from a club for political science students and pre-law people into a club that can touch the hearts and inspire the imagination of so many students.”

Throughout the year, he says, BreakthroughBU operated with a guiding principle: “Stand up for what’s right.” The slate was perceived as one that would advocate for marginalized communities and “meet students where they are,” he says, which propelled it to victory.

From speaking at rallies against mass deportations to authoring a letter on affirmative action to supporting a referendum, he and his team stayed firmly at the forefront of the University’s social and institutional conversations. Still, representing nearly 18,000 undergraduate students came with its challenges.

“When you have people from all over the world, obviously they’re going to have different viewpoints on matters relating to geopolitics, relating to social life, relating to economics,” Antwi says. “Anything that you find, people will disagree about.”

He approached this by aspiring to be a “unifying figure.”

“I think that trying to thread the needle between really contentious issues to find something that we can really agree on and really hold dear to our hearts is something I very much tried to do,” Antwi says. “Don’t be overly divisive and do everything with a smile on your face as well.”

Antwi says his favorite memory of his presidency was speaking at Gilliam’s inauguration, and emphasizing in his speech the value of her inauguration to marginalized groups at BU. A close second was speaking at the 2024 Matriculation, and highlighting his mother in his speech. 

“My mother is my role model, my hero, and she sacrificed so much to place me in my position, as so many immigrant parents have done, coming to this country with nothing and being able to give your children everything,” Antwi says. “The best part of the Matriculation speech was that she was sitting in that crowd. She had no idea that I was going to talk about her, but she was pleasantly surprised.”

He says the role of student government president has pushed him out of his comfort zone—from dealing with funding cuts to navigating communication around the Israel-Hamas war and the US presidential election season’s divisive results—but he and BreakthroughBU stood firmly with their beliefs through mounting pressure.

“There definitely are times in which you’re going to make decisions and those with more leverage of power are going to disagree,” he says, “and they’re going to attempt to sway you from making such a decision by undermining your confidence and the power that you have.” 

He says he’s also gained a deeper understanding of how a university operates—who holds the power, how policies are shaped, and what a research institution like BU values deeply: “It provided me with valuable experience on how to address divisive issues while preserving your integrity and attempting with sincere effort to unite students around common causes.”

And as BU’s 94th Student Government president, Antwi says, he aimed to lead student government into a more responsive, transparent, and student-centered organization—one that would meet students in the middle during a period of immense change. “It was a monumental year of change,” he says, “But like I said, change is good. It teaches you to stay on your toes.”

Antwi says he hopes that his legacy as president will be that “students care now more than they have ever before.”

Looking ahead, he feels confident leaving Student Government in the hands of the newly elected BridgeToBU slate that he says seamlessly continues BreakthroughBU’s mission. 

“They understand the issues that we were fighting for by being at the forefront of social issues and making student government more transparent and accessible,” Antwi says, “More importantly, they know how to have fun with it and know how to represent students in a way where it doesn’t come across as too technocratic or too bureaucratic.”

Reflecting on his term, Antwi says the experience surpassed his expectations: “This year was everything I could’ve hoped for and more.”