For many students, meeting Reggie the Campus Corgi, also known as Reggie Bee, is the highlight of their day or even their week. So, it comes as no surprise that when a campaign was started on March 16 to elect Reggie Bee for Central Student Government president, students showed their support. Three days after the creation of the Reggie Bee for CSG Facebook page, Reggie accepted the nomination.
Engineering junior Brett Swiecicki voted for Reggie as CSG president.
“Honestly, with the content I’m exposed to on a daily basis, personal, interpersonal, on social media or in print advertising, Reggie was the only person that I knew that was ‘officially running’ for Central Student Government,” Swiecicki said. “I was aware of other platforms, but I wasn’t aware of any of the other people that were running or what they stood for. The main reason I wanted him to win is because I feel as though he should be more officially integrated into the University. I know a lot of other people wanted to vote for Reggie because they wanted to prove to the other students running that they didn’t really believe in their ideas as much as a dog, essentially.”
However, on Wednesday afternoon, midway through the two-day election, Reggie Bee announced his resignation on Facebook. By that time, the page created in order to elect him had already received nearly 600 likes.
“Because some of my good human friends are ‘truly’ running for Student Government President, I’ve decided to ask all my friends to get out and Vote for Them. They deserve your support in their sincere desire to become leaders of the student body.” the post said.
In a follow-up post, Reggie once again encouraged students to go online and vote for the human candidates in the election, adding he “ran out of steam.”
While some students were excited about the prospect of Reggie becoming president, others, such as LSA senior Zach Xu, feel that a dog could not serve as the student body president.
“I legit think the whole Reggie thing is a joke,” Xu said. “Reggie is not a human being. And if he won by popular vote, it would be ridiculous for a dog to serve as a president of a major public university in the United States.”